A Scots gran has been left unable to talk after being diagnosed with a rare neurological condition.
Betty Campbell, 69, was told she has Bulbar Palsy – a type of Motor Neurone Disease (MND) that affects the muscles of the face, throat and tongue – after initially noticing a problem with her speech. The condition has resulted in Betty, from Edinburgh, having issues swallowing – and she is now unable to speak, relying instead on a text speech app to speak to her friends and family.
Her granddaughter, Rachel Mclelland, told the Chronicle: “My nana has had on and off issues for a while and has undergone different tests for about a year. At the end of 2024 she was diagnosed with Bulbar MND. It has hit us really hard and is really difficult.
“It was her speech that was the first symptom. She had a lot of tests as they weren’t sure if it was a stroke she may have had. She still has her motor skills at the moment and can still walk about, but she has issues swallowing and is on a poor soft food diet at the minute.
“It did start off with just speech and now she is unable to talk completely so uses a text to speech app on her iPad. I think it has been frustrating, she has always been so initiated and funny, and she is a bit older so she finds it hard using her iPad and takes a bit of time to type things out. She is kitted out in the house now and has a chair that helps her sit upright.”
Rachel, 26, said they will need to see how symptoms manifest in the future and would try to manage it as best they could. She said: “They don’t know timescales, obviously different symptoms manifest at times so we are all left a bit in the dark.
Now, Rachel is preparing to do a charity skydive to raise funds for the MND Association. She said: “I’ve managed to raise quite a bit but it is just something to honour my nana and give back to her. She is always the type of person doing stuff for other people.”
Rachel said Betty is the “most selfless person you would ever meet”. She added: “Me and my nana have always had a really close relationship. She is a massive feeder and always doing everything for everyone else. She is so strong given everything she has gone through. She makes us all very proud. She is very much the centre of our family.” To donate to the fundraiser, click here.
Don’t miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond – Sign up to our daily newsletter here.