Looking back, I wonder what took me so long to realise something was wrong. Admittedly there were a few odd occurrences, but each could be explained away … it’s the hours I work, I’m getting older, I’ve a lot on my plate.

Things had been a bit strange for several months. For many years I have worked as the breakfast sub-editor at Newstalk ZB. It’s a great job and one I treasure, even though it does require a 4am start. The hours have enabled me to more easily juggle the pressures of having a family, with my husband doing the early shift when the three kids were little, and me picking up the after-school hours. It also meant I could make the most of a wonderful opportunity, which came out of the blue when I was 45, to be a netball commentator with SKY Sport, while still working in radio.

Because of the early hours, I always have a sleep during the day. It was waking from that daytime sleep towards the end of last year, that sometimes I would take a while to work out where I was, what was happening and find my words. There were other little signs. I remember starting my commentary at the top of the first Silver Ferns test against South Africa in September, without picking up my microphone. I also increasingly found myself losing my way when regaling stories (I can be rather long-winded), searching for words I could never find. It was convenient to explain all this as just being due to the early hours. Arguably I should have acted sooner, but each time something weird happened, I would bounce back and everything would be normal.

It was while working on the Inside Netball podcast in October that I really noticed something was amiss. Again, I would lose my path when talking about particular teams or players. I remember someone making the comment that Jenny was like the crazy aunt alongside Anna Stanley and Adine Wilson. Believe me, that was not my intention. One occasion Adine came to pick me up to record the podcast, and we went around the block and she dropped me home again. I couldn’t organise my thoughts into anything reasonably coherent. I certainly wasn’t up to a broadcast.

I had gained a contract to commentate netball at this month’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. I was thrilled, but soon became worried I would become the commentator who couldn’t speak. That fear as much as anything is what drove me to find out what was going on. I booked in to see my GP, a neurologist appointment followed in February, and that’s when things became a lot more sobering.