I was diagnosed with Kennedy’s disease October 1999 and only then realized I was experiencing minor symptoms for almost 10 years. I had been Supervising in the Canadian oilfield (field drilling operations) when I first noticed twitching of my facial muscles, muscle cramping and weakness in my legs. This started to effect my beloved hobby, fishing. I began rotating out of Argentina in January 1995 when symptoms started getting worse but attributed this to being out of shape. We completed many big wells here developing this new technology. In December 1996 I moved to The Netherlands for a British company to take a role as Under balanced Drilling (UBD) Coordinator for continental Europe. In Holland, I helped design the first 5000 psi Under balanced Drilling System and the first offshore Under balanced Drilling job conducted in the Dutch sector of the North Sea. This was 3 years in the planning and resulted in my first published article in the February 2000 issue of World Oil.

This job was finally completed March of 1999 and a month later the company was short of operational personnel, so I agreed for one last trip offshore provided it was limited physically. Do you have any idea how many stairs there are on these platforms? On the completion of that 2 week hitch (surprise, surprise, the 3 day job got extended) there was one last stair climb (6 flights) with all my gear in a survival suit to the helipad. I made it half way across the helideck and my legs decided to quit. I went down like a ton of bricks. The safety officer and personnel thought I had just tripped but my legs would not work at all. Two of them ran out to help me on my feet but I could not even stand. Needless to say, I was a little embarrassed when they had to carry me to the helicopter as my crew was wondering what was going on, so was I. The flight was about an hour which gave my legs a chance to gain strength before going through customs.

I started to see a neurologist and I enrolled in a health club to strengthen my legs but after 3 months they were worst than ever. I had to quit under doctors orders. My brother, David, had sent me a collapsible cane which I was now using full time.

David, contacted me early 1999 while both of us were going through testing on our conditions. The Dutch require a mastery of the English language in order to graduate high school and as a result all medical personal can speak and write very well. I was very lucky in this respect, can you imagine going through this and not being able to communicate with your doctor? David and I were e-mailing each other on which tests we’ve had, results and which were scheduled. My Dutch Neurologist in Den Helder, scheduled me for a spinal tap, blood tests and an EMG at the same time as David was taking his. Before I got the test results, David’s doctor wanted to test for SBMA (Kennedy’s Disease). I was sent to the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam in August for DNA testing and confirmed with Kennedy’s Disease October 26, 1999.

You can just imagine what goes through your mind when you have moved to a foreign country to work in a physically demanding job and getting this news. I was put in charge of Business Development for UBD in Europe but this increased my travel to a level of 50-60 flights per year. This gave Karol and I, the chance to visit countries like France, Germany and Belgium, while work took me to Scotland, London, Abu Dhabi, Egypt, Tunisia, Cyprus, Malta, Moscow and Portugal.

June 2000, I accepted a position with Halliburton Energy Services as an (Underbalanced Applications) UBA Advisor in Houston. Travel did not decease that much but life became easier. Working here I visited Denmark, Norway, China, Malaysia and Brunei in addition to France and U.K. I spend most of my time now writing procedures, standards, guidelines, Management Systems, contracts etc. in the Houston office.

Just 2 weeks before the Baltimore KD conference I took delivery of my Invicare XTERRA GT wheelchair. I can actually walk the dog and go to the mailbox now which is very exciting; I don’t get out much at home. I have since picked up a Toyota Sienna and a Bruno chair lift. I’m now mobile without pain and discomfort for the first time in years.

E-mail Murray Williams: mwilliams1077@houston.rr.com