The call came to her in the bistro in San Francisco where she was working long hours as a head chef.

It was her mother with bad news – she had just been confirmed with the diagnosis she had feared for so many years – she had Multiple Sclerosis Disease.

That call was to change Rebecca’s life in ways she just couldn’t have imagined previously.

Back home in Sydney’s Balmain, there was no-one to look after her mum who now had significantly increased care needs.

What had started out as a simple attack of ‘pins and needles’ in her legs several years ago, had steadily progressed to a disease which had robbed her mother of her ability to walk or to do most of the tasks of everyday living we all take for granted.

Initially, help from her young son, Home Care, and her neighbours had been enough, but now that the disease had progressed, leading to serious incapacity, there was no one left to ask but Rebecca, and she made the tough decision to quit her job, pack her bags, and come home to Australia to care for her mum.

When Work’n’Care caught up with her, she was too busy to take much time out for an interview.

“I’d love to talk, but honestly, I can’t leave mum for more than a few moments, so you’ll have to be quick,” she said with a laugh, trying to make light of the serious situation she is facing.

“Yeh, it’s been pretty tough. If someone had told me a few months ago that I would be washing mum’s privates, dressing her, feeding her, making decisions on her medication and all of that, I would have said ‘no way’ I can’t do that.

“But it is amazing what you CAN do when you just have to get on with it and there is no one else to ask.

“Mum is losing the ability to see and to speak, so she is relying on me increasingly to make fairly complex decisions about everything, from what doses of medication she should be on, to how the will should be structured and who will get what.

“It is surreal. I don’t get much sleep, as I have to turn mum every hour or so through the night and on top of that I am caring for my younger brother as well, cooking, cleaning, shopping – all of that.

“He is amazing and a great help, and pretty independent, but he is still a child and still needs care and support, so I have a weird mothering role to play with him, as well.

“I have no idea how long I can keep this up. We have no other family in Australia and my dad passed away some years ago.

“I miss the life I used to have; I miss my friends, my network of support, my boyfriend. It has all gone.

“But I love my mum and wouldn’t choose to be anywhere else, either. I am just taking one day at a time for now and not thinking too much about the future.”