A Family Tradition - a Column by Carlos Briceño

Huntington’s disease (HD) has cast a long shadow over my wife Jill’s family tree. When she was diagnosed in 2018, we knew we’d be fighting the same enemy that had taken her father and many other relatives on his side of the family. Today, we focus on what gives…

When I received my wife’s recent text, which she wrote in all caps — something she’s morally opposed to — the room seemed to tilt. I felt like dancing like a fool while laughing and crying at the same time. Jill had included a link with the following headline: …

A quiet evening at home recently threw me for a loop. My wife, Jill, and I were relaxing in our living room, watching a reality TV show, when one of the cast members used the term “woke” to insult someone. Without missing a beat, Jill looked at me with genuine…

When my wife, Jill, was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease (HD), our world shifted. HD is a cruel, inherited, neurodegenerative illness that affects movement, cognition, and emotions. It’s a diagnosis that forces you to confront life’s fragility head-on. For us, it also became a wake-up call — a chance to…

My family has a running list of sayings I’m officially banned from using at home. Apparently, tossing out cheesy phrases multiple times a day is grounds for an intervention — at least according to my wife, Jill, and our daughter, Alexus. But for this column, I’m breaking the…

I never thought I’d be driving to work listening to the Kelce brothers interview Taylor Swift about her upcoming “Life of a Showgirl” album on their “New Heights” podcast. At 61, my musical tastes have been pretty set for decades: Give me some Bruce Springsteen or U2, and…

Last in a series. Read part one.  Choosing genetic testing for Huntington’s disease is an act of courage on its own, as I pointed out in my column last week. But as my wife, Jill, discovered, the medical system’s maze can make it feel like an outright ordeal.

First in a series. When people ask my wife, Jill, about her Huntington’s disease, I never expect her reply to reach for a playground metaphor. But she has a way of drawing from everyday life, turning even the hardest subjects into something instantly relatable. “It’s just like a…

The other week, I hit what I like to call the trifecta of family wins. My wife and daughter actually laughed at one of my puns (a rare feat); I managed to find something my wife, Jill, couldn’t see (she usually finds the things I lose); and, perhaps most…

I never expected a lesson in quantum mechanics to help me make sense of my wife’s Huntington’s disease diagnosis. But over the past few years, as I’ve watched Jill navigate the unpredictable nature of this illness, the parallels between her journey and the famous Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment have…