Living with Huntington's Disease

It's a strange place being premanifest for a disease.  You are not yet like the other symptomatic sufferers of HD but you are also no longer in the place of unknowing like those who are living at risk for HD. You are in a waiting room. Waiting for you to be next. Nothing has happened yet but you are constantly either preparing or grieving for what will. But to be honest I don't know what I'm waiting for. I know the symptoms of HD and I have seen them in my father but I don't know what it will be like for me. What HD Polly will look like. I don't know what it will feel like or whether I will even realize.  You are constantly watching your parent's journey with HD, how it affects them, how they cope, how it manifests in them, and how other people treat them yet knowing all the while that yours is also to come. You are waiting. You are watching. You are preparing.  When I was in my place of denial in my twenties I used to think that this was morbid and completely u

I thought I'd do a little introductions post to kick-start this blog.  I am Polly and I am 30 years old. I have been married to Jason for the past ten years and we have a little Chihuahua called Bea. I am also a Christian and have been since around the age of 19 years old. My first love in life is reading followed closely by writing.  I wanted to share with you how I want to use this space. I got diagnosed with Huntington's Disease (HD) in 2012 and have been on a long journey of coming to terms with what this looks like for my life. I spent the best part of my twenties living in denial and fighting away my diagnosis but it was only when I fell into a dark depression that led me to counselling that I finally began this journey of accepting my diagnosis. It's been a really hard couple of years.  So you may ask what is HD? It is a rare incurable neurodegenerative disease that is inherited causing progressive damage to the brain over time. Although HD is found in our genes symp