Columns

When my wife, Jill, was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease (HD) in 2018, she had been feeling anxious and depressed. It was one of the reasons she decided to go through with genetic testing, as these are common symptoms that act as warning signs for gene-positive…

I’ve always loved television shows about the Wild West and cops who are smart and funny. There’s a swagger about the characters that I always wanted to embody. Plus, they always beat the bad guys. Since my wife, Jill, was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease in 2018, we have…

I attended my first Huntington’s Disease Society of America (HDSA) Annual Convention when I was 9 years old, and have since gone more than 10 other times. Families, clinicians, healthcare professionals, pharmaceutical companies, and more are present at the three-day event, which changes location every year. The convention is…

My wife, Jill, was diagnosed as gene-positive for Huntington’s disease (HD) in 2018, and our daughter, Alexus, was diagnosed the following year. Because HD runs in Jill’s family — multiple people on her father’s side of the family have battled it, including her dad — she’s…

A former columnist for Huntington’s Disease News, Erin Paterson, tested gene-positive for Huntington’s disease (HD) in 2006. She’s also the founder of Lemonade Press, a social enterprise focused on empowering people through storytelling. Through writing and speaking about genetic disease, depression, and infertility, she hopes to…

I love clichés. I love to share these small, yet overly heard nuggets of wisdom whenever I can. Who cares if they prompt an eye roll or two? I use them to explain things so often that my entire family has come to expect it. When our dog, Baby…

I’m not what one would call a clean freak. I’m messy and always have been. Sometimes my mind goes so fast that I’ll put things down and forget where. I don’t mind my world being somewhat chaotic; in fact, I don’t really notice it until it’s so bad I…

An encouraging number of clinical trials are currently recruiting, or soon will be, for people affected by Huntington’s disease (HD). I recently wrote about the CAP score, a mathematical calculation that many HD clinical studies use to find participants who are at comparable points along their HD…

In 2018, my wife, Jill, was diagnosed as gene-positive for Huntington’s disease (HD). In the months leading up to her diagnosis, she’d begun experiencing depression and anxiety, as well as other HD symptoms, which started her down the long road of finding helpful medications. At…

In a recent column, I shared that I was battling a serious infection, which led to a four-day hospital stay. My main concern was about my wife, Jill, who is gene-positive for Huntington’s disease (HD), and how frustrating it was for me to be sick when it’s…