It is six years ago, that the former AZ Alkmaar-, Glasgow Rangers and Zenit player Fernando Ricksen for the rolling tv cameras broke down and shared with the world, that he had been diagnosed with the disease ALS.
ALS is a disease which affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, which means that the hit is slowly becoming paralyzed until the body gives up. ALS is a death sentence.
In an interview with The Guardian he says now about life with the disease.
Ricksen is in the day chained to his wheelchair and can only communicate through a computer that he controls by using his eyes.
In the same way as the world-renowned physicist, Stephen Hawking, who also suffered from ALS, reading, computer high, what the user wants to say.
Fernando Ricksen during a charity event in the Netherlands in 2016, which would raise money for the fight against the deadly disease. Photo: VI-Images via
In the interview, telling the dutchman, who was known as a fighter of god’s grace and a bit of a troublemaker in his active career, about some of the feelings and thoughts that arise in a well-functioning mind trapped in a body in decay.
– It is difficult to talk about fear. I’m not afraid to die. But when the disease makes that suddenly I can’t breathe when I’m suffocating, then I’m afraid, ” he says.
Fernando Ricksen also share some of his thoughts on euthanasia, which is a legal practice in their home country, the Netherlands. But the possibility to choose, when it should be over, has he not want to make use of.
– I understand why people choose that way, but I have not even the feelings. I care too much to live. I’m not ready to take of the place, he says.
Ricksen in action for Glasgow Rangers in a qualifier for the Champions League against FCK and Thomas christopher røll. Photo: Ole Steen/POLFOTO
Together with his wife Veronika, whom he met while he was playing for the Russian team, Zenit, has Ricksen daughter Isabbella. The image of the six-year-old girl is permanently in a frame at the side of the computer screen, as Ricksen communicate through.
his Daughter is his biggest inspiration, and possibly the reason for that Ricksen now have lived six years with a disease that takes the lives of most after just a few years.
Isabella has never known his father without ALS. But even though she knows that her father is sick, so she is not yet aware that she is before long going to lose him.
Veronika Ricksen tells in the interview about the difficult considerations that she and her husband have made themselves, on the daughter’s relation to the disease and his father.
– She is aware that he is different than other fathers. She knows, of course, that he can not walk and can not speak for themselves. But I don’t think she is aware that he is going to die. I will not make it harder for her, for she miss him very much, she says.
Veronika took care until the end of 2018 even of her husband 24 hours a day in the couple’s home in Valencia, Spain.
But his condition is now so bad that he has been permanently hospitalized in a hospice in a small town outside of Glasgow. St Andrews Hospice provides Fernando Ricksen optimal conditions to live under in the time he has left.
But it is far from Valencia, where his wife and daughter still live, and it is hard to understand for a six-year-old girl, who misses his father.
– the Last time we were visiting, thought Isabella, that Fernando was taking us home to Spain. So when we were picked up, she asked’ why should the father not with you?’ We cried, all three. Now she asks every day when he comes home, and it is the hardest part for me, ” says Veronika.
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