Brenda's story

Brenda’s husband was diagnosed at the age of 43 years with Huntington disease.

They had four children together and before the diagnosis he had been struggling to support Brenda. He was dropping things, been more absent from the home and had changed from someone who was even tempered to someone who exploded at the slightest thing.

Before the diagnosis, Brenda had been considering leaving him. The family were referred to a psychologist at diagnosis.

“My first reaction when he was diagnosed was one of great sympathy, which rapidly changed to one of immense anger. We had done nothing wrong, especially our children but they each had a 50/50 chance of inheriting the gene. I also felt like a complete fraud. I thought that we were an ordinary family, but this had been there all the time, waiting to come out. We had always been an HD family but because he was adopted, we didn’t know it.

Talking to the psychologist and the support from the whole HD team has been lifesaving for me, our relationship and our family......the future is not going to be straight forward, but I don’t feel alone”