Faces of HD

My beautiful daughter, Kaitlin, was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease (HD) at age of 17 – 5 years ago. Around 14 or 15 we s uspected something was wrong but didn’t realize HD affected young people – I always thought it was something that happened  later on.  After scheduling and cancelling several appointments with a genetic counselor we finally took her to be tested.  We  didn’t want to place this burden on her at such a young age yet we couldn’t let her continue to wonder what was going on each time she stumbled and fell.  We didn’t want to waste valuable time and wanted to start finding ways to slow this disease down and preparing for a life much different than planned.

After Kaitlin was diagnosed I learned about the Team Hope Walk for a Cure.  We didn’t have a Team Hope Walk in our area so I decided that this could be one way to start helping to fight this disease.  We have been so blessed by love and support from our faith family and friends who have rallied around us to help our walks grow from 150 walkers the first year to over 300 walkers last year.   We have raised nearly $77,000 with our Team Hope Walks. This is our 5th year and we have been encouraged  to add a 5K to bring increased community awareness.

We pray each day that a cure will be found but until that happens we will continue our fight.

Each year we are able to reach out to others in the community who are impacted by HD and we want them to know they are not forgotten and that we are fighting for them too!