The school year recently ended, which may be good for students and teachers, but not for my wife, Jill. The last week of school is a lot like walking through a car wash for her. Because she is the school secretary, she still works a lot as everyone else winds…
My wife, Jill, and her phone are like Siamese twins — attached all the time. At least, that’s how it seems. Jill, who has Huntington’s disease (HD), stares into her phone for hours when we are at home, playing puzzle, tile, and problem-solving games such as Tile Master,…
I recently gave a presentation at an event, during which I explained that my wife and daughter have Huntington’s disease (HD). I then showed a video that illustrated the devastating toll the illness can take on a gene-positive person’s mind and body. After the presentation ended, I wasn’t surprised…
This week, my wife, Jill, bought meals from HelloFresh, a company that sells kits with the ingredients and the recipes to cook at home. Apparently, because of the pandemic, something known as “cooking fatigue” has led many people to tire of the repetitive chore of starting from scratch.
I recently received an email from Kelli Yoder, the communications manager at Adira Foundation, an organization whose mission is to “invest in better lives for people with neurodegenerative diseases.” She wrote that the foundation had enlisted the help of StoryCorps, a…
Buried in my brain is a Proustian memory. It occurred during my elementary school graduation ceremony when the principal played the song “The Way We Were,” by Barbra Streisand. Any time I hear that song, I am transported back to hearing Streisand’s voice: “Mem’ries/ Light the corners of my…
One of the characteristics of a good journalist is being able to digest a lot of information, such as the entirety of a study, and then concisely present the most pertinent and interesting facts in a 700-word story. I have written many of these articles in my career, and I…
Over Easter weekend, my mother-in-law, Edwina, visited. My wife, Jill, and I are always happy to see her, and as usual, the conversation turned to the latest news in the family. One notable occurrence was a situation involving her brother’s mother-in-law, Lucille, whose health at 97 years old is fragile.
“Do you believe in miracles?” Sports announcer Al Michaels uttered that sentence on national television in February 1980 during an Olympic hockey game between the United States and the Soviet Union. During the game, which was later dubbed the “Miracle on Ice,” the Americans were heavy underdogs. But that…
My wife, Jill, and I do not dwell on her Huntington’s disease (HD). We know it’s there, of course, lurking like gray, angry clouds and chilly air that say winter is coming. But from time to time, we do talk about it. The other night, Jill used a…
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