Kerry Eldred, who lives in Jacksonville, Florida, tested positive for Huntington’s disease in 2009. She shares what she wishes loved ones knew about her reality, calling it a “ticking time bomb.”

So, for me, when someone asks me — especially as, even though I’m not clinically considered to have onset yet — I have the “it’s just a matter of not if, just when.”

And when I tell people that I feel like a ticking time bomb ever since that day where I was — it was actually July 20, 2009, when I got my — because I remember that day. I don’t want to remember it like an anniversary, but I just, you know, it’s the day I got the worst results of my life. So now, I just want to keep it from spreading or getting worse. So I feel like I tell people that, that it’s like feeling like a ticking time bomb that’s about to explode.

But you don’t know when, and you don’t know what’s gonna make it explode. And so it’s like this experiment in your life of trying to figure out: What’s the balance? What’s the thing that I gotta do? What are the healthy habits to make sure I adhere to?