This idea started in a counselling session. I see a psychologist once a month because my husband has Huntington’s Disease. This is a degenerative neurological disease that combines the worst aspects of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Disease. (Well not really but it is the best way I have of describing it.) In a nutshell, a faulty gene makes a toxic protein that causes brain cell death. This creates ‘holes’ in the brain.
In one of the sessions with my psychologist, I was expressing my sadness about Kevin’s personality becoming diluted by the disease and lamenting that my children’s strongest memories of their father would be the version destroyed by this horrible disease. My psychologist suggested writing about the things that were special about Kev, the things I fell in love with and admired and the attributes I wanted my boys to emulate. As Kevin’s memory begins to fail, I also wanted something that he could read to remind him of who he was and the relationships he nurtured and to keep his memories safe somewhere.
As I thought about this (mostly late at night), I realised that Kevin had an impact on many people, and they may also like the opportunity to record what they loved or admired about him. Over the recent weeks, this has developed into the idea of a blog.
I am calling on Kevin’s friends, family, fellow teachers and past students to provide a story about Kev that typifies the essence of the man that you knew. Check out the menu, new posts will appear on the Kev’s story page. You can make a comment on the page with that name and I will try & use your stories in posts or send me an email of your stories of Kev and I will add them to the posts- jenglish@aapt.net.au. In the future I hope to start sharing my thoughts and experiences as a HD carer.
Thanks for your friendship and support.
Jenny English
Useful websites:
http://en.hdbuzz.net/
http://www.huntingtonsvic.org.au/
http://www.ahdansw.asn.au
PS I have a new blog about my work life http://mrsjenenglish.wordpress.com This will be about my thoughts on teaching and learning.
Kev, Me and HD 