Wheelchair user’s appeal for road fix

 Seamus Enright

A Mullagh man battling Motor Neurone Disease (MND) wants to live to see his two young daughters attend school and, beyond that, still be capable of travelling to collect them. Andrew Brennan's dream is fading as quickly as the road surface outside his rural east Cavan home. He is now forced to turn back just several hundred yards from his front gate due to the worsening condition, and feels if it gets much worse he could be “trapped” completely.
 “I dread to think if something caused me to topple over and what'd happen if no one was around to help me,” says Andrew (35), who was diagnosed with MND in February 2015.
 With remarkable strength of character, Andrew has embraced what time he has left with wife Yvonne and their two young girls, Sophie (3) and Aoife (5). The two-storey home, once a Church of Ireland national school and place of worship, is down a narrow yet busy country lane. Of huge significance is the independence he enjoys, boosted not only by the arrival of a custom-built wheelchair from Germany, but a specially modified car paid for through the generosity of the local community.
 As a result, Andrew has thus far managed to defy the bleakest medical predictions. He firmly puts his current good health down to maintaining a “positive outlook, my family, friends, and still being able to leave the house and bring my girls on walks”.
 Custom built to cater for his needs, Andrew's wheelchair has no suspension. Four of the chair's wheels are attached as casters, two front and two rear, with the two main driver wheels fixed in position centrally. As Andrew passes over an otherwise innocuous looking stone, the weight of the chair with him in it sends the miniature crag spinning to the verge with an uncomfortable clunk. “I felt every bit of that,” he tells the Celt.
 “It can make you feel really sick after travelling over it,” says Andrew, who is calling for greater investment in rural roads so he, or others with mobility issues, can continue to live with as much self-sufficiency as possible.
 Andrew's wife Yvonne praises her husband. She too is animated by the condition of the road, saying: “You do feel for Andrew. Life is hard enough coming to terms with being in a wheelchair, so it’s all about him holding onto what independence he still has while he still can. His condition is not going away, we know that, we've come a long road trying to come to terms with that, so it’s about his state of mind as well. If all he's doing is cooped up in the house, it’s not good for him either.”
  Their plight was most recently raised with Minister for Transport Shane Ross by Cavan-Monaghan Fianna Fail TD Niamh Smyth, who sought commitment for more funding to be allocated to local authorities.
 To date the Council has only managed to patch the local roadway in places, despite past promises of a full fix.
 “I did a lot of walking when I first learned about my illness and I don't want something as simple as a road surface to stop me from living my life now, and keep me trapped at home,” adds Andrew.
 “My two girls have started school now. Aoife, my eldest, is starting primary school in September and I always hoped I'd be here to see their first day of school. I hope in the future to be fit to travel in this wheelchair to collect them from school. That will only happen if something is done about this road.”
 The former newspaper printer by trade is an ambassador for MND Global Awareness and speaks openly and candidly about his journey of his illness.
 “The stage I'm at means I'm fully dependent on my wife. She really is an amazing woman. She has an awful lot to do. 
“She has to look after me, the two girls, and the house. I can't expect her to have the time every day to drive me to the nearest town with a park to allow me to use paths or better roads.”
 Where that might have been possible at one stage, that scenario is becoming increasingly difficult as the couple’s modified Citroen Berlingo, with its lowered floor to facilitate Andrew and his wheelchair, now struggles to get over the worsening humps and bumps with the combined weight.
 At present, the family must curtail their speed dramatically when travelling the road in the car to get across some sections, otherwise the bottom scrapes the ground. “I mean, if it [the car] gets damaged, it’s not as if we have another one spare,” puts Andrew bluntly. 
“I don't know how much longer we'll be able [to travel the road]. If it gets much worse, we mightn't be able to get out at all.”
 They are understandably precious of the vehicle, funded by locals who rallied around the embattled family in an act of solidarity. It’s an act Andrew says he “will never be able to repay”.
“It’s incredible the kindness of people, what they've done for me and my family is amazing!”
 Andrew accepts his situation is not unique and there are roads in much worse condition throughout the county. While is he “expecting a miracle”, he says “patching is just not going to cut it any more. We don't all have, or expect the privilege to have the road networks or footpaths of living in Dublin. 
 “Nobody ever believes or maybe wants to believe they'll face ending up in a wheelchair but, when it happens, it’s unbelievable how you begin to see things. 
You see things differently, feel things differently to how you would've walking everywhere.”