Dave the Project man: Life with MND.

A life spent in forestry means that David Quill knows just about every joke about wood going around, and he’ll happily admit he’s responsible for keeping most of them in circulation.

A successful international forestry consultant and business manager for most of his life, David competed in motorsport rallies, flew planes, built houses and indulged his fondness for watersports, once giving spectators quite the waterskiing show.  

“I actually skied over 20kms on the Murray River without any clothes at all,” he said with a grin.

Most people approaching their eightieth decade tend to slow down, however, for David, now 78 and in his second decade living with MND, it’s all about getting on with life, before life gets done with him.

As the afternoon light hits the dusty air in his workshop on his Yahl property, Dave is painstakingly sanding a length of western red cedar, his good friend Llew watching on.

Every movement takes considerable time and effort. Industrial sanders and saws aren’t patient with unresponsive fingers. A tool dropped on the floor at 9am may stay there until there’s someone around to pick it up.

MND has taken much of David’s movement, but his left hand is still answering…. for now.

It was back at the start of 2010 when David began paying attention to the first signs of something not-quite-right in his own body.

David, then the General Manager of AusTimber, the Southern Hemisphere’s largest forestry expo, had noticed he was dragging his feet while walking and had even tripped over a couple of times at the event.

However, it was a comment at a dinner party from a friend and GP who watched David walk across the room that got his attention.

“I was dragging my feet when I was walking and he said, ‘what’s wrong with your gait David’?”

First believing balance may be the cause, David went and got tested at the hearing clinic, then underwent a full body MRI, which both revealed nothing untoward.

But his determined GP friend insisted on further tests, getting him in with a neurologist at Melbourne Private Hospital, where he underwent intensive examination and an EMG.

David recalls the words that changed his life.

“He said, ‘I can’t be definitive, but I strongly suspect it is MND’. I was devastated,” said David.

Another specialist neurologist at the same facility confirmed the diagnosis.

At that time, the life expectancy for MND was under 30 months.

Admitting he had virtually no knowledge of the disease back then, David had met a client’s wife, then in the terminal stages, non-communicative and strapped into a wheelchair, which gave him some frightening insight into the progressive nature of the disease.

David said his wife of 52 years helped him face both the life changes and challenges head on.

“She’s a keeper,” he says fondly, of Lil.

“I had very strong support from Lil, my partner in life, who did as much as she could to understand the disease and to support what I did.”

The first few years after diagnosis were tough and David approached them with a mix of stubbornness and determination.

 “I lost the connection between my brain and my legs,” he said. “I’d tell my legs to do something and they wouldn’t do it’.

An active worldwide business and pleasure traveller before the diagnosis, David watched his painstakingly built consulting business ‘fall into a hole’ when he could no longer handle the long-distance travel.

He remembered the day he had to hand in his drivers license, then resort to using crutches and finally, move to a motorised wheelchair.

A towering 6ft5 in his heyday, David suddenly found himself at eye level with the 5ft1 Lil.

A good friend delivered him some blunt insight.

“He said, ‘you just have to slow down. You can lose the feeling in your hands if you talk yourself into it. You can also talk yourself out of it’,” Dave said.

Once responsible for managing hundreds of employees and project managing multi-million-dollar companies, David became Managing Director of a backyard business for just one.

He might not be able to run an industry expo, but he could still build.

And build David did. Prolifically.

Before the house, David had built a workshop for rebuilding rally cars for his son Tom and sheltering equipment for the property’s vineyard.

Heavily project-oriented, David had built two houses, including their Glenburnie property, and was widely known for being ‘a man who was good with his hands’.

Now the workshop became a hive of activity, with David producing elaborate chests of drawers for his three grandchildren, huge display cases for local businesses, kitchen cabinets and tables for old university friends.

Then there are the more personal and treasured pieces, such as the jewellery box for his wife Lil.

His constant carer and always by his side, Dave battles to find the right words when it comes to his wife of more than five decades.

“It’s impossible to put a value on the love and support that Lil gives me, in just so many ways,” he said.

From overseeing a bevvy of carers to wielding a bottle for pee breaks, to carefully managing Dave’s diet and badgering him to take the right pill at the right time, Lil’s influence and care is everywhere.  

Well aware that everyone’s MND story has a vastly different ending, it would be fair to say Dave didn’t expect to see his 70s, and now he’s fast approaching his 80s.

Still living at home, Dave describes himself as ‘one of the lucky ones’, to have the family support and means to do so.

He’s also fond of a mock-Latin saying ’Illegitimi non carborundum’ which roughly translates to ‘don’t let the bastards grind you down’.

However, an iron will and stubbornness only gets you so far; MND is marked by its slow creeping progression and the slow erosion of physicality is highly frustrating.

“If I drop something now, it stays on the floor for ten minutes until Lil comes down and picks it up for me,” he said. “There’s a hell of a lot of determination involved.”

Gradually, the more complex wood projects have had to give way to easier ones, like chopping boards.

Over the last year or two, around 25 have been made, finding homes with friends and through raffles at events such as the Mount Gambier Aero Club’s 50th anniversary.

Ever the shrewd businessman, David insists on a minimum $200 donation to the cause – MND Victoria - the association the couple credits with helping them get through the last 13 years.

Late on a Wednesday afternoon, David is in the midst of a spirited debate about the merits of cedar over jarrah with Tom, who has arrived to drop off a load of wood, to keep David’s projects rolling.

The workshop and its daily structure is his ‘sanity’ David said, keeping him driven and inspired.

Refreshingly blunt, David’s trademark sense of humour is always at hand.

“What else can I do, can’t walk the dog, can’t fly aeroplanes or climb mountains anymore. I haven’t been able to walk for seven f**king years!”

As much as MND has taken, there have also been gains, in unexpected ways.

Friends have stepped in to replace his now useless right hand, arranging to come and have a ‘Dave day’ in the shed.

His granddaughter Keira carefully clips Dave’s nails every month or so, a level of closeness developing between the two.

Longtime friends bring their caravans and dogs and come to stay for weekends, bringing stories and long wine-fueled lunches.

Sometimes, one of David’s bespoke wood creations finds its way home with them, a little reminder of David in every carefully made piece.