LIFE: Hello. I’m trying to figure out what I should say here. Since I am a songwriter, there will be songs and stuff about music in some of these ruminations. I may include feeds from other things that I like and think deserve to be read.
But since I am the main caregiver for my wife Kathy, there will be stuff about that. I’ll try to keep it amusing all the time but jokes about terminal diseases aren’t easy to come by. As you can probably tell from the web site menu, Kathy has Huntington’s Disease (HD). It’s a genetic brain disease she inherited from her mom’s side of the family. One of my heroes, Woody Guthrie, died from complications of it in the 60s but HD is still fairly rare. HD is like the greatest hits of Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s, Depression, and Anxiety in one super group. Some typical symptoms like angry outbursts and random shaking start to appear when you are in your 30s or 40s. But everyone is different.
People always want to know, when we knew. When were you diagnosed? I have that written down in her records somewhere. Although there is a blood test to determine if you have it, Kathy chose not to be tested. Her neurologist, a little miffed that she didn’t get tested, just kind of blurted out that he was 99% convinced she had it anyway. I suppose if there is a silver lining, it is that Kathy showed a lot of her symptoms later in life than many. It was in her 50s that it became more noticeable: some angry outbursts; facial and uncontrollable body movements. She is now 66. We know it now.