THE first sign of Jayne Bishop's illness was when she became slightly forgetful.

The disease quickly affected the ex-nurse's memory and her physical co-ordination - but it took until October before CJD was diagnosed.

Her husband Terry, a building site manager and former policeman, said the family GP thought it was depression at first and prescribed drugs for that.

Over the next few months they tried psychiatry and homeopathy but still no-one knew what the illness was.

The mum-of-two was eventually taken to the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, where she had once been a nurse, for a brain scan in September.

Terry said: "It was September 25 - our wedding anniversary - and they had the scan booked for 10am.

"I couldn't go down because I was on crutches after an operation on my leg and the phone rang at 12.10pm.

"They said they were going to take her in immediately and I was sat here crying thinking, 'Thank Christ somebody's helping me'.

"Ten days later they'd done every test and didn't know what it was.

"They'd got an idea but they needed the CJD surveillance team in Edinburgh to come down.

"By then she could talk to me slightly but the muscles in her face and throat were going and I was taking her to the loo and feeding her.

"I went down there and there were eight or ten of them in a room - the team from Scotland - and they said they were 95 per cent certain it was CJD.

"They said, 'You won't tell anybody'. I had to meet some wally from the Government - they were frightened.

"They looked me in the eye and said, 'About six weeks to live'. The brain is totally turned to mush on one side - it goes like mushy peas."

Perhaps the most terrifying thing about the illness was that Jayne had no idea what was doing this to her. She was a sharp, intelligent woman, the manager of a medical care centre at Horspath Road trading estate, and suddenly she started to deteriorate mentally and physically.

"It's frightening for somebody. She was an intelligent woman and she couldn't remember her date of birth or the days of the week," Terry said.

"Sincerity and honesty were the key words for my missus. She called a spade a shovel and sometimes a JCB. She was very honest, very frank, very forthright, but always sympathetic to other people."

Terry is certain CJD killed his wife - but her death certificate says dementia and bronchial pneumonia.

A spokesman for the Radcliffe Infirmary told the Oxford Mail: "The outcome of the post mortem is still awaited."

Terry wants CJD recorded as the cause of his wife's death, mainly because that might mean compensation for their sons.

Last week he went to Leeds to meet members of the CJD surveillance team, which is based in Edinburgh, and the families of some earlier victims.

"With the 24 people who have died at the moment they are trying to find a common denominator," he said.

"I was listening to people who have dealt with the problem for a little bit longer than me and to different people's experiences.

"If something can come out of it that's all we can ask. Somewhere down the line all this trauma we've gone through may help someone else."

The fear is that if the new form of CJD is closely linked to eating beef from BSE-infected cattle, then it could become an epidemic. The disease can take ten or 15 years to develop so it could be a while before the danger is known. In 1996 Ilja Andrews tried to sue the Ministry of Agriculture after the death of her mother Fonnie Van Es, of Dashwood Road, Banbury, from CJD in 1994.

Ms Andrews had to drop the case because she was not granted legal aid but she remained convinced that her 44-year-old mother died in the town's Horton General Hospital as a result of eating BSE-infected British beef.

Dot Churchill, secretary of the national CJD Support Network, said campaigners wanted the new-variant CJD to be officially recognised as human BSE.

Mrs Churchill's 19-year-old son Stephen was the first - and so far youngest - to die of the new strain in this country.

She said: "There are about five different types of CJD and the new variant is the only one that's related to beef."

CJD is a frightening illness which tortures its victims before killing them.

Early symptoms of new-variant CJD include pain in the feet, hands and legs, depression, apathy and unsteadiness.

Sufferers are soon confined to bed because walking becomes impossible. People become depressed and forgetful, suffering delusions and hallucinations.

One patient claimed to hear the devil talking to other people, another thought he was being controlled by other people.

One victim was convinced he had murdered somebody and one woman believed she had given birth.

These cruel symptoms then give way to complete dementia, which finally destroys all awareness and personality.

Sufferers are unable to talk, limbs move involuntarily and some patients go blind shortly before they die.

Many die within a year.

The new variant attacks when people are relatively young - the average age of UK victims is 29.

The Radcliffe Infirmary is the specialist centre which treats sufferers from Oxfordshire and surrounding counties.

A spokesman from the neurology department said: "It is a horrid disease and is terribly upsetting for the friends and family of the patient.

"There is no treatment. A patient would stay in hospital unless the family particularly requested they stayed at home."

The infirmary covers about two million people and would expect to see one new case a year, the spokesman added.

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