A story from my niece who's asking for some help.



Just about 2 weeks left until the HDSA Team Hope Walk here in LA, and we're a third of the way to our fundraising goal...which I think warrants a good story, don't you?

My mom is not the first in my family to deal with this disease - years before she began to show symptoms, her brother was diagnosed and began his long fight with Huntingtons. Dani and I were still young at the time, probably around 9 and 6, but my mom would bring us over to Uncle Geno's house with her every once in a while when she would go to check in on him, and we would keep ourselves entertained while she made him lunch, or sat and talked to him for a while. Our favorite pastime was "practicing" darts with the dartboard in his living room - neither of us could ever throw them far enough to stick, but our dad played a lot so we wanted to impress him later with our skills. Danielle, in all of her infinite 6-year-old wisdom, thought one day that it would be fun to try to shoot them backwards - lean back and right over the head, like a basketball trick shot. Even then, I was smart enough to know that Danielle and sharp objects were a bad idea so I asked her to wait while I hid in a far corner of the room. Didn't help. A few "pings" later, I felt a sharp flash right between my shoulder blades and yelped as the dart stuck me right in the back and fell to the floor. Danielle started to cry. We both waited for the yelling to start.

But when we turned around, mom and Uncle Geno were silent, tears streaming down both of their faces, looking at each other. I thought maybe they were crying, until mom squeaked and took a deep breath. They were laughing. Silent, shoulder-shaking, can't-breathe-can't-stop laughing at their idiot daughters/nieces. My uncle couldn't speak much, sure, but I'll be damned if they didn't laugh the exact same way.

My uncle died when I was 18. My mom still laughs like that. Even though she can't say much more than "yup" and "thank you" and the "I love you" she forces out whenever we walk through the door, when the room erupts into laughter, I look over at the tears in her eyes and the shaking in her shoulders and know there's some things this disease can't touch.

So, we walk to see if we can't make it all untouchable. And we could really, really use your help.