The first time I met my wife, Jill, she told me she wasn’t comfortable with “PDA.” Being a smart aleck, I asked her why she didn’t like personal digital assistants. (The old PalmPilots were known as PDAs.) She flashed the patient smile of someone who knew it would require…
A Family Tradition - a Column by Carlos Briceño
Columns
Forced Family Time
My wife, Jill, and I live in Illinois, where the governor has declared a stay-at-home order for our entire state. It’s been weeks now. He also suggests canceling summer events and has decided that children will not return to school for the remainder of the academic year. We are…
Columns
The Realities of Rare Diseases
Social distancing seems to be the trend these days. Several reality shows illustrate what I mean: participants practice social distancing and isolation to such an extent that everyone communicates to each other behind walls (in “Love Is Blind“) and computer screens (in “The Circle“). Now, though, this is…
Columns
We Are Two People with One Heart
My home has been super quiet for the past several days, a silence that will continue for several more as my wife, Jill, visits our daughter on the East Coast. Jill was supposed to be gone for only four days from Wednesday to Sunday, but her trip was extended when…
Columns
Believing in the Impossible
When she was little, my daughter, Alexus, visited a 7-Eleven store with my wife, Jill. To reward Alexus’s wonderful report card, Jill said she could choose any treat. Our daughter said she wanted one of those scratch-off lottery tickets. Jill patiently tried to explain that no one ever really…
I can’t stand dogs. They bark a lot. They smell. They require a lot of attention. They tend to whine when I’m on the phone. So, yeah, I can’t stand them. Relax, people! I’m just kidding! I wanted to get your attention for a couple of minutes so you could…
This week marks a year since I started writing my column, “A Family Tradition.” Having a forum like this has provided an amazing opportunity to share about the journey my wife, Jill, and I have embarked on since her Huntington’s disease diagnosis in 2018. Honestly, I wish neither she…
Listen, do you hear that sound? It’s the sound of people panicking. The cause of their panic? The coronavirus. It’s difficult to avoid the topic as it’s constantly on the TV news, on the front pages of every newspaper, and all over the internet. It’s the subject of jokes…
Emily Zivin is a licensed clinical social worker at Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Movement Disorders Center in Chicago, one of the Huntington’s Disease Society of America’s Centers of Excellence. My wife, Jill, and I know her from Jill’s visits there. We find her to be effervescent, highly knowledgeable,…
Recently, our daughter, Alexus, came home for a weekend visit. It was wonderful, and the weather was perfect. We ate delicious food and had one big ball of fun. We are lucky to live in an area with many things to do. The weather has been so gray lately, but…
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