I knew my love was dying of a terminal disease but I married him and had his children anyway... Good Health.

Byline: KATE MAXWELL

WHEN Charlotte met footballer John Bell at 18, they envisaged a glamorous life ahead. But their dreams were shattered when John was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 27. Here Charlotte, now 30, tells KATE MAXWELL how their desperate search for a cure has even led John to China for experimental injections in his brain - and why he is appearing in a poster campaign for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

TO THINK there will be 60ft posters of John on London Underground is surreal. I always told him he would be famous, but I never imagined it would be for having motor neurone disease.

When he asked me to marry him, I thought I was going to have a glamorous lifestyle as a footballer's wife. He had been signed to Sheffield Hallam FC as a semi-professional and had ambitions to play for Manchester United.

But just six months later, he was diagnosed with this fatal illness.

And it is to try to help others in the same position that John is appearing in the Motor Neurone Disease Association poster campaign at Euston and King's Cross underground stations.

There are two pictures side by side - the first showing John fit and healthy at the age of 27, just before his diagnosis. The second will show the gradual progression of his condition. In the first of the series, going up later this month, John is in a wheelchair with the headline: 'I've taken my last step.'

He will continue to be photographed until his death.

We first met 12 years ago at a football match.

He was a good-looking, sporty guy with lots of friends and a great sense of humour. Despite a few hiccups, I always knew we'd end up together. And on a summer holiday in Turkey five years ago, John proposed. But soon after we got home, our lives fell apart.

The first sign something was wrong was when John found it difficult to run on a treadmill at the gym. We put it down to an old ligament injury, but one night we were watching TV and he said his fingers kept twitching. I told him to go to the doctor, but he kept putting it off.

Then in January 2001 our GP changed and the new one called in all the patients for a medical.

I think the doctor knew instinctively something was wrong, because he referred John to hospital immediately.

He was in for a week and had a different test every day. At the time, neither of us thought it was serious. But when we went back for the diagnosis, the consultant said: 'I'm sorry to tell you you've got motor neurone disease.' We didn't really react because we didn't have a clue what it was, so the consultant explained it was what Stephen Hawking had. I was mortified - I couldn't understand how John, who looked so well and was only 27, could ever be like Stephen Hawking - in a wheelchair.

But the doctor explained that nerve cells connected to John's muscles would gradually stop working, leaving him paralysed.

Eventually he would be unable to talk or feed himself, although his mind would still be active.

At the time we were days from signing for a new house - we'd bought the furniture, but hadn't had the mortgage agreed, and the consultant told us there was no way John would get a mortgage now. That was when it really hit home.

NOW it sounds awful, but at the time we were more devastated by the prospect of losing the house than by the diagnosis - we had our lives mapped out, the house, the wedding - and this put everything in turmoil.

Because we knew so little about MND, we combed the internet. We discovered that about 5,000 people in the UK have the disease, and it mainly affects people over 40, so John was unusually young.

No one knows what causes MND and there is no cure, although research is ongoing.

What really shocked us was learning that people survive only between 14 months and five years after being diagnosed. The only part of the body the illness doesn't affect is the brain.

Stephen Hawking has lived with the disease for 30 years, but he is unique.

We spent the next two weeks in tears, grieving. But then we woke up one day and decided we had a choice: either we could be miserable or we could carry on with our lives.

Because we weren't sure how well John would be by the time our wedding date arrived, we considered moving it forward and having it in a register office.

But it seemed a shame to substitute the wedding we'd planned for something we didn't really want.

Meanwhile, we agreed to try to start a family - we wanted there to be something left of John when he wasn't here any more. We'd always planned to have children, but in our 30s rather than our 20s.

We were lucky: by July of that year, four months after the diagnosis, I was pregnant with Samuel, who was born in March 2002. By then, the first signs of deterioration had begun. John could hold Samuel if you passed him to him, but he couldn't pick him up because his arms were already too weak.

By the time of our wedding, in June, John's illness was still not visible to most people. He couldn't put the ring on my finger, and if you look closely at the wedding video, you can see he dragged his feet slightly when he danced, but otherwise he still looked so healthy and handsome.

The wedding was everything we'd dreamed of - a wonderful day of celebration - and Samuel was there to share it.

John was working for Mercedes when he was diagnosed, but he gave up his job four months later. At first he was fairly active and could drive. But by the beginning of 2003 he had a few bad falls and we had to be realistic - he needed to be in a wheelchair.

We decided to convert the garage on the side of the house (we eventually got a mortgage in my name) into a bedroom and bathroom for John. We had a remote control system installed, so he can answer the door, change the TV channels and alter the heating with his foot.

Because I work, we're quite limited as to what funding we receive. People often say that we'd be better off financially if I gave up my job, but for me, work is my normality, it's my social life.

John's mum and a team of carers look after him during the day and I'm there at weekends and in the evening.

People used to say: 'You didn't have to stay with John.' But I never considered leaving.

MND didn't really change how I felt about him. If anything, it probably made me more determined to stay with him.

WE have lost part of our relationship - I think that's inevitable.

It's hard to be a carer and a wife. But we still laugh a lot. We like watching comedies. Our favourite is Little Britain - I tell John I'm sure that when I turn my back he gets out of his wheelchair and runs around, like Andy does in one of the sketches.

And John always surprises me. For the past few years he's been giving me blank birthday cards because he wasn't able to write - I'd joke that he was doing it so he could recycle them.

But last December, he signed my card. I was amazed and asked him how on earth he'd done it - he used his foot.

We'd always said that we'd have two children and decided to try for another.

Our parents didn't understand - they'd been worried about how we'd cope with Samuel and thought we were mad. But we thought that if Samuel had a brother or sister, it would make things easier for him when the inevitable happened.

MND is like a ticking time bomb - you don't know how long you've got, so we were delighted when we discovered, in September 2003, that we were having Gabriel.

John was going to hospital every six months for check-ups and had taken part in a drug trial, which unfortunately did not materialise into a treatment.

Throughout his illness, we've found that John has been treated more as a number than a person. Perhaps it is because doctors find it difficult to form relationships with people they know will become very ill. Our support has been from people such as those in the MND Association, rather than the hospital.

Since last Christmas, John hasn't been able to speak particularly well and around the same time his stomach was fitted with a feeding tube because he had been losing weight and was only able to eat food that had been blended.

He has nutrition feeds with the same calories and goodness as a normal meal and they go straight into his stomach using a pump. He can still drink and his weight has now stabilised.

Losing his speech has been the hardest thing for John. He uses a light-writer - a device he taps words into which are then voiced or I can read - when I really can't understand what he's trying to say.

We were lucky that when John was diagnosed, Riluzole, a drug that prolongs the lives of MND sufferers and is the only treatment available in the UK, had just been licensed. He's been taking it twice a day and that could be why he's still with us nearly five years later.

We've also been constantly on the lookout for stem cell and herbal treatments. Last year, I chanced on a website set up for people with MND and their families, on which carers and professionals also post messages.

I got in contact with a woman who said her husband was going to Beijing for stem- cell treatment. China is the only place in the world offering the treatment - it's illegal in the UK because the cells are harvested from aborted foetuses.

It's also controversial because the doctor pioneering it hasn't done any trials - he believes it's unfair to treat some patients and not others by giving them a placebo - so there isn't any firm evidence that it works.

Even though I knew it wouldn'tbe a miracle cure, when I read about it, I knew John had to have it. But it was [pounds sterling]13,000, plus the cost of the flights and accommodation for the six weeks John would be there.

We didn't have that money and John wouldn't let me borrow it from the bank, so I had to start fundraising. I held a race night in Sheffield, which raised a good deal, friends and family did sponsored sports events, and we had lots of donations in the post.

Incredibly, by April we had [pounds sterling]20,000, and John went to China with his mother to have the treatment. We didn't know exactly what to expect, and John's condition was fairly advanced by the time he left, but we were optimistic.

HE had two injections of stem cells in his brain and intense physiotheraphy.

He didn't come back with massive improvements, but his swallowing improved slightly and he gained some fine movement in his hands, which might have been the result of the physio.

The best thing has been that since the operation his condition has stabilised - he hasn't deteriorated any more.

I think John has accepted his illness, but he still gets upset and frustrated about things, and it's more difficult now because he can't tell me how he feels. But he has said that if he didn't have me and the boys he wouldn't want to be here.

Samuel is very advanced for his age - he helps with his dad's feeding and when people ask what's wrong with him, he'll say: 'He's got motor neurone disease and that means his muscles are dying.' I'll ask Gabriel to give his dad a goodnight kiss and he trundles over and kisses his knee.

At the same time as John was diagnosed, Diane Pretty was campaigning for the right to die.

At the time I was against euthanasia. Four years down the line I have mixed feelings.

I'm not actually in favour, but I wouldn't condemn anyone who was. Watching how my husband has deteriorated in four years and knowing what's coming to him, I can understand that there might be a point when he won't want to be here.

John and I have been very involved with the Motor Neurone Disease Association since he was diagnosed - we want more people to be informed about the condition.

People who don't know John will speak to him really slowly because they don't appreciate that even though he's in a wheelchair, he's just as sharp mentally.

The more money the MND Association gets, the more there will be for stem-cell research, which I believe is the only way forward. One day there will be a cure for MND and people might not have to go through what we've been through.

But most importantly I want people to know that life goes on.

We've done more in four years than some poeple do in their whole lives - we've had two gorgeous boys and been on holiday twice a year.

I may not watch my husband score goals for Manchester United, but we're still together and that's what really matters.

* TO CONTACT the Motor Neurone Disease Association, call 08457 626262 or visit www.mndassociation.org. You can see the new advertising campaign featuring John Bell at www.johnsjourney.org