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I’ve never been completely comfortable with the pressure that comes with the theme of “starting over.” We’re often encouraged to treat a new month or year, a birthday, or even a simple Monday as an opportunity to become a better version of ourselves. We make resolutions, buy planners, create routines,…

Imagine anger residing at one end of your home and autonomy at the other, with Huntington’s disease (HD) sitting right in the middle. Before my wife, Jill, found out eight years ago that she is gene-positive with HD, she could usually tell when she was becoming irritated. She…

When people talk about joy, they often make it sound polished. It might be presented as big smiles, perfect vacations, exciting announcements, or lives that seem untouched by hardship. It’s often packaged as something bright, effortless, and easy to recognize. But that’s not the kind of joy I know. My…

My wife, Jill, who is gene-positive with Huntington’s disease, and I don’t usually associate Legos with cancer. Those are two worlds that feel like they belong on completely different shelves in life. Yet American households collectively owe at least $220 billion in medical debt, much of it tied…

For a long time, my body didn’t feel like a safe place to live. Huntington’s disease changed the way I moved, rested, thought, and experienced the world. My earliest symptoms began with involuntary movements in my toes. Over time, they spread to my fingers, arms, legs, upper…

My wife, Jill, was watching a show about survival the other night, the kind where people are pushed to their limits in the wilderness. When it ended, she turned it off and sat quietly for a moment. Then she said, almost to herself, “It’s wild how far people will go…

Attending the 2026 Huntington’s Disease Society of America (HDSA) Convention in late June in Phoenix, Arizona, gave me the opportunity to meet professionals working to improve care for people affected by Huntington’s disease (HD). One of those professionals was Elizabeth Ferluga, MD, director of movement disorders at the telehealth…

Disability benefits is one of those topics that my wife, Jill, and I never thought much about until Huntington’s disease forced it into the center of our lives. Before Jill was diagnosed as gene-positive in 2018, I vaguely pictured disability as something that happened to other people, a…

My journey with invisible muscle movements known as chorea began in 2010, before I knew that Huntington’s disease was part of my story. It started with subtle, writhing movements in my toes. At first, the movements seemed small and easy to dismiss. I didn’t understand why they were happening,…

Years ago, our daughter, Alexus, asked where her favorite “coat to steal” was. She described one of my jackets. I pictured my closet and came up blank. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. She described it in detail: the color, the fabric, and how it hung on…