HD-TV: Art Imitates Life

CAREGIVING: Last night we were watching TV. Our usual routine is to watch the news (MSNBC or CNN) before dinner. Then we watch something entertaining on our Roku box before I clean Kathy’s teeth and get her into bed. We got caught up on all the back seasons of Downton Abbey and Foyle’s War that way. We have been watching old episodes of Inspector Lewis and watching Ballykissangel again. But last night we were watching Doc Martin. It is a British comedy/drama about a grumpy doctor who practices as a general practitioner in a small seaside town. He ends up diagnosing many health issues accurately but his bedside manner couldn’t be worse. Many of the other townspeople are also unusual characters and pretty funny. The town reminds me of Plymouth MA, where Kathy and I lived a block or so from Plymouth Rock and the faux Mayflower.

In this particular episode the older brother of Officer Penhale, the town cop, is visiting him. He starts having some health issues when he is painting Doc Martin’s office. Doc starts to ask him questions about his family and stuff. His dad had died young, and was ‘odd’. Then Martin decides he wants to check the guy’s blood for “Huntington’s Disease.” I asked Kathy if she wanted to watch it or have me change it. She tried to nod her head but with her shaking it is impossible to tell. So I repeated and she got out the words “please change.” There is nothing like a sitcom with Huntington’s Disease in it.

I just paused playing that particular episode and we watched the next one. It had nothing to do with any illnesses either of us had, or were coming down with. Phew. After Kathy was asleep I went back and watched the rest of it. Officer Penhale and his brother did not have Huntington’s. But the brother had lead poisoning from being an art forger and mixing his own lead paints. The HD part of it wasn’t handled well or sensitively. In the US, at least, there is genetic counselling to see if the person can handle the diagnosis if it comes back as positive. It is one of the reasons Kathy and many other people decide to not get tested.

There have been some decent portrayals of Huntington’s on television and in movies. I’ve seen a few of them. Most recently on the TV show, House, Dr. Remy Hadley (“Thirteen”) played by Olivia Wilde had HD. It showed some of the effects on personality and behavior that can happen although parts of it weren’t realistic at all (like testing with a q-tip). Of course Alice’s Restaurant has a brief part about Woody Guthrie in it with Arlo. And there was another show called Everwood that handled the questions about testing really well without ever showing the person that had the Huntington’s. ER and Scrubs also had HD as a sub plots on a few episodes. And Walter White’s father died of it.

List of Huntington’s Disease in media.

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