Things were going very well until last week.... We are now on the fourth and final version of the software, which is rapidly approaching beta. The hardware is ready for beta testing now, and we had hoped to be recruiting testers from the MND/ALS community this week. But last week Steve got ill.

ALS kills by weakening the sufferer's breathing muscles to the point where you are unable to breathe well enough to clear the carbon dioxide from your lungs. You essentially suffocate, with your family around you, powerless to help. Steve and I are both approaching that stage. Our ability to breathe is adequate, but only just. When you are balanced on that knife edge, your health becomes a fragile thing, and any illness can quickly become serious.

Last week, Steve got a chest infection. A minor thing that a healthy person wouldn't even miss work for. After two days Steve was rushed to hospital unable to breathe. Since then, for the last week, Steve has been in and out of intensive care. This morning he told me that he has been moved on to a general ward, and the doctors say he will be leaving the hospital in his wheelchair - not a box. The relief was incredible. I cried.

Steve has become a really close friend, and an essential part of the Eyedrivomatic team. Without him I would be broken. Eyedrivomatic would have continued, but without Steve, only at a fraction of the speed. It got me thinking too. My health is as fragile as Steve's, but if I die Eyedrivomatic would stop. All the files are on my pc and nowhere else. Anyone who wanted to carry on the project would struggle without the files, and good documentation. So, in the short term, software development has been put on hold, while I get everything properly documented and up on our github repository. More news next week