Chloe Hadjimotheou

A few years before all this, he actually discovered he has autism, which really helped explain why he hasn't always found things easy.

But John was continuing to get worse.

The medication wasn't working.

That was obviously an enormous relief.

He told them that what John has is much worse than Parkinson's.

Actually, I'll let John's doctor explain.

John had corticobasal degeneration, or CBD for short, the same condition Moth was diagnosed with in the salt path.

It's rare.

It only affects roughly one in 100,000 people, and it's fatal.

John's doctor, Dr. Gratwick, is one of the UK's top specialists in CBD.

People are referred to him when, like John, doctors can't work out what else might be wrong with them.

Even so, in his 20-odd years of practice, he's probably only seen around 30 people with the condition.

He says most neurologists might only encounter one or two cases in their entire career.

What's interesting is when Dr. Gratwick has to break the news about CBD to someone like John, he doesn't use euphemisms or try and soften the blow.

He's incredibly direct.

It's a tragically fast and cruel disease.

All things considered, John took the news pretty well.

Even so, Dr Gratwick was unequivocal with him about the inevitability of what was in store for him.

Then later that summer, John's wife Bridget was listening to the radio when she heard Raina Wynne being interviewed.

And she heard her talk about the fact that her husband Moth has the same rare condition as John.