As hopes build about the first effective therapy, a Huntington’s disease family reunites

 

After 17 years of estrangement because of disagreements over family caregiving, in July I visited my hometown in Lake County, Ohio, to reconnect with my younger sister Donna. She began having Huntington’s disease symptoms in 2020.

 

In early 2023, Donna told me, via Facebook, that she had tested positive for HD but did not mention whether she had symptoms. I did not respond at that time because of unforeseen circumstances unrelated to HD that led me to step back from HD advocacy, including this blog.

 

In March of this year, I finally responded to my sister, my only sibling. We then spoke on the phone. Donna explained that she had HD symptoms. Despite her HD, we had an understandable conversation. She also revealed that one of her three sons, 37-year-old Greg, had also tested positive for the HD gene.

 

At the end of this emotional phone call, we expressed our love for each other and our respective families. I felt an enormous relief at having reconnected with my sister. Since then, we have texted each other regularly.

 

As an advocate, brother, and gene carrier who has luckily hit 65 without apparent symptoms, I felt duty-bound to check up on my younger sister. She is 63. Our mother Carol died of HD at age 68 in 2006.

 

On July 15 Donna, her husband Barry, my nephew Greg, my wife Regina, and I had a three-hour dinner at a restaurant in Painesville. Though it was, potentially, a very awkward reunion, we reconnected in a most cordial manner.

 

We were family, and we knew we had to reunite to offer mutual support and understanding in the fight against HD. I thanked Donna, Barry, and Greg for forming a team in the annual Huntington’s Disease Society of America Hope Walk (HDSA) fundraiser.

 

I have their permission to write this article.

 

Left to right, Gene Veritas (aka Kenneth P. Serbin), Donna, Barry, Greg, and Regina. Barry is wearing an HDSA Team Hope t-shirt (personal photo).

 

A family reunion – and wonderful news!

 

We all caught up on one another’s lives.

 

I squeezed Donna’s hand firmly several times and looked into her eyes. Because of HD, she had to retire from her job, and recently she stopped driving.

 

Barry, always the dedicated husband and now a caregiver, detailed the adaptations he had made in their ranch house because of Donna’s involuntary movements and instability in walking. She had five falls in their previous, two-story home.

 

As I had remembered him as a child and young adult, Greg was ebullient, enthusiastically speaking of his work as a computer programmer, his car, and his fiancé. He does not have HD symptoms.

 

We also discussed potential HD disease-modifying treatments – slowing, halting, or reversing the progression of symptoms.

 

I especially had in mind uniQure’s AMT-130, about which I had seen a presentation at the 20th Annual HD Therapeutics Conference in February in February. The uniQure program seemed the closest to seeking approval for its drug from the U.S. Food and Drug and Administration (FDA).

 

Since our dinner, we have stayed in touch.

 

On September 24, when uniQure announced that AMT-130 had successfully slowed the progression of HD, I texted Donna and Greg with the news.

 

“Wonderful news!” Donna and Greg both responded, echoing the elation of HD scientists and HD families.

 

I hope that we can continue to rebuild our lost family ties and support one another in the fight against HD, as we once did at the start of our HD journey with my mother’s diagnosis in 1995.

 

Rescuing neurons from death

 

HD occurs because of the massive death of brain cells (neurons).

 

AMT-130 is the first successful disease-modifying HD drug. In the uniQure clinical trial, it achieved its main goal and demonstrated a 75 percent slowing in the progression of the disease over a three-year period.

 

On September 25, Ed Wild, M.D.,Ph.D., a professor of neurology at University College London and an investigator on the uniQure program and senior advisor to the company, gave a podcast interview to HD gene carrier Lauren Holder of Help4HD International.

 

Dr. Wild pointed out that “AMT” refers to uniQure’s original name: Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics. The Dutch and American company was founded in 1998.

 

Because it is a gene therapy, AMT-130 remains in the body permanently, thus allowing for the running of long clinical trials and without the drawback of a possible placebo effect, Dr. Wild explained. The effect of the drug “appears to be growing” over time, he added.

 

The 75-percent improvement went “dramatically beyond what any one of us could have dreamed of,” he said, adding that cognitive decline also slowed substantially.

 

AMT-130’s effectiveness lies in its reduction of the abnormal huntingtin protein in the brain.

 

Dr. Wild observed that the slowing of the disease has resulted from AMT-130’s “rescuing neurons” from death.

 

Because AMT-130 mainly targets the striatum (deep in the brain), other areas such as the cortex might still need treatment, perhaps done with another type of drug in a combination therapy, Dr. Wild observed.

 

He added that additional studies of the drug might be needed. “We’re up for all of that,” he said. “It’s putting flesh on the bones of what is already a winning recipe.”

 

Important details to be resolved

 

Many important details must be resolved before AMT-130 reaches HD patients.

 

In early 2026, uniQure plans to apply to the FDA for drug approval. Pending approval, the drug would be launched in the U.S. later in 2026. uniQure would need to gear up its AMT-130 operations to coordinate with HDSA and other patient and clinical organizations to inform the HD community about the drug and its availability.

 

Administering AMT-130 is far more complex than the pills or spinal injections used in other clinical trial programs: it involves 12 to 18 hours of brain surgery.

 

Dr. Wild noted that the treatment will be “expensive.” “The drug is made from a virus and so it has to be manufactured in specialized facilities,” he explained.

 

Dr. Wild estimated that, based on previous gene therapies, AMT-130 will cost $2 million per person.

 

“It’s obviously a lot of money, but we’re already spending a lot of money to keep people with Huntington’s cared for, to manage the symptoms, to provide assistance to their families,” he noted. The insurance industry, he said, also will need to agree to pay for the treatment.

 

Waiting for news of who can be treated

 

While the AMT-130 clinical trial included people in stages 2 and 3 of the disease (stage 4 being the worst), “it’s difficult to predict” who would get the treatment of an approved drug, Dr. Wild explained. He said the community needs to have the FDA permit as broad a label as possible: simply “Huntington’s disease.”

 

That label would allow people (like Greg and me) who have tested positive for the HD gene but lack visible symptoms to obtain the treatment. HD research has determined the disease process begins at birth, with the damage building over life, Dr. Wild observed. Gene therapy, a one-and-done treatment, is most potent when done early in life, he added.

 

Because of the conditions of accelerated approval granted by the FDA, uniQure would need to continue monitoring the drug, Dr. Wild said. If the drug does not work, approval can be removed.

 

A critique of AMT-130 and a call for accurate communication

 

Not everyone shares the same enthusiasm for AMT-130. Ignacio Muñoz-Sanjuán, Ph.D., the CEO of Rumi Scientific, a drug discovery company focused on genetic and neurological diseases, published a critique of uniQure’s AMT-130 data (click here to read more).

 

A native of Spain, Dr. Muñoz co-founded Factor-H, a charitable organization seeking to assist poor HD families in Latin America and raise awareness about their plight. He is the former vice president of translational biology for CHDI Foundation, Inc., the largest private funder of HD research and the sponsor of the annual HD Therapeutics Conference.

 

Dr. Muñoz agrees that the AMT-130 results are “a turning point for the field of HD and, more broadly, for the treatment of neurodegenerative conditions at large.”

 

However, Dr. Muñoz raised caveats about AMT-130. He wrote, for instance, that the study “only showed the results derived from 12 patients who have completed the full 36-month period” of the trial and they were “in the early stages” of the disease.

 

Dr. Muñoz urged uniQure to analyze data from “all individuals in the study.” With the “small number of individuals receiving the therapy, one or two people could be disproportionately contributing to the signals of protection demonstrated for the group average.” Twenty-nine volunteers took part.

 

“Families deserve a realistic sense of the commercial path ahead,” Dr. Muñoz added, advising “careful communication” with HD families. Access will “dominate the conversation,” he added, noting that “costs, geography, and the need for specialized neurosurgical centers will slow availability, creating disparities that will frustrate many families worldwide. The path to broad applicability will be slow and difficult.”

 

‘Day one of a new world’

 

I wish my parents, Paul and Carol Serbin, were still alive to witness this moment in the HD journey! An “HD warrior,” my father was my mother’s HD caregiver for over ten years.

 

Paul and Carol Serbin (family photo)

 

Although it is unclear whether Donna, Greg, and I will even have access to AMT-130, the news of its efficacy still brings us immense hope.

 

As my blog has documented the past 20-plus years, HD families face enormous stigma and tensions. I am overjoyed at my family’s rapprochement at this promising moment.

 

As Dr. Wild noted, before AMT-130 more than HD 100 clinical trials had been run, without disease modification.

 

“It’s day one of a new world, but it’s up to us to define the characteristics of that world and make sure that it’s capable of delivering the benefit to everyone who needs it,” including, he said, poor HD families in Venezuela who contributed blood samples in the search for the huntingtin gene.

 

“No one is free until everyone is free,” he said.

Faith in each other: sticking together through the challenges of Huntington's disease

This article is dedicated to my lovely wife Regina and to HD caregivers.

In 2017 my wife Regina and I marked 25 years of marriage with several celebrations, including a May dinner in Rome before meeting Pope Francis at #HDdennomore and then at one of our favorite San Diego restaurants on our anniversary, December 8.

Throughout last year, I relished the many triumphs of our life together: establishing successful careers, building important friendships, and raising our daughter Bianca, who will graduate from high school in June.

I have also reflected on how Regina and I have confronted the ordeals of Huntington’s disease, the debilitating, genetic neurological disorder that took my mother’s life twelve years ago this month. Because I too carry the HD gene, I will inevitably develop symptoms.

Last year, former San Diego Chargers PR director Bill Johnston exemplified the commitment to caregiving when, after 38 years with the team, he skipped its transfer to Los Angeles to keep his wife Ramona in an award-winning HD care facility.

“He didn’t run away from his marriage vows,” HD community member Dave Elliott reacted to the news in a Facebook comment. In HD families, those vows imply a heightened commitment.

Gene Veritas (aka Kenneth P. Serbin) and Regina Serbin at the Vatican Museums, with St. Peter's Basilica in the background, Rome, May 2017 (photo by Bianca Serbin)

Avoiding the HD shipwreck

Regina and I have faced the challenges of HD together.

The day after Christmas 1995, we received the terrible news that my mother had HD, that I had a 50-50 chance of inheriting the genetic defect, and that the children we planned for also faced a risk.

Many relationships shipwreck upon receiving such news (click here to read more).

However, Regina stood firmly by my side. One night, as I lay beside her gripped with fear, she hugged me tightly.

In 1999, Regina sat by my side as a geneticist revealed that I had tested positive for the HD gene.

Seven months later, we shared a tremendous sense of relief with the news that the baby in her womb, our daughter Bianca, had tested negative.

In 2011, Regina sat in the front row as I delivered the keynote address at the “Super Bowl” of HD research, the Sixth Annual HD Therapeutics Conference, sponsored by CHDI Foundation, Inc.

Each day, Regina lives with the fear that she could lose me to HD. Like my “HD warrior” father, who cared for my mother daily for more than a decade, she faces the prospect of watching (and tending) to my slow deterioration and loss of self.

However, not once has she blinked in her commitment.

With faith in each other, and also in the Creator, we have stared down the lion of HD. Striding side-by-side in annual Team Hope Walks, we yearn for an effective treatment.

A healthy relationship might delay onset

Like any long-term relationship, ours has had its ups and downs. Sometimes our different cultural backgrounds (Regina’s from Brazil) have led to disagreements. Overall, though, we have come to accept and appreciate each other’s foibles.

Ken and Regina in front of the Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, 1991 (family photo)

We’ve built a united front in running the household, helping Bianca prepare for college, and strengthening the family finances, preparing for the likelihood of my disability.

Whereas my mother’s HD symptoms started in her late 40s, at 58 I have fortunately avoided HD onset.

Scientists are still seeking to explain the differences in onset in people with identical HD mutations like my mother and me. I’ve strived to lead a healthy life, as I’ve chronicled in this blog.

Though the data from studies is complex, science suggests that healthy relationships can help promote overall health.

I firmly believe that I remain asymptomatic in good part because of Regina’s love and support, and because of our shared mission to build a family and raise a thriving child, soon to turn 18.

Treasuring my family

In our frenetic society, and as my aging seems to make life move faster, it becomes easy to take Regina for granted in our daily routines.

I feel a deep need to stop time and savor every moment with Regina and Bianca.

As I've pondered the deeper meaning of our marital commitment, I've focused on what's essential: treasuring them fully.

Upbeat Huntington’s disease film, featuring undaunted family, aims for 10 million viewers

The Longest Journey – a new feature-length documentary film about Huntington’s disease – portrays the undaunted Shaffer family in an epic battle.

In June 2015, for the fourth time in ten years, Renato Shaffer of San Diego led a team of four men in the Race Across America (RAAM), a non-stop bicycle race from the pier in Oceanside, CA, to the boardwalk in Annapolis, MD. (In 2008, Renato also led an HD team in the Race Across the West.)

Their goal: to raise awareness about HD and support the effort to save Renato’s 48-year-old wife Sharon and 30,000 other Americans from the devastating, fatal neurological disorder and prevent it from striking the Shaffers’ two untested, at-risk daughters, Alexa, 25, and Taylor, 20.

Beautifully shot and directed by rising filmmaker Nathan Apffel and with inspirational sound design by Brandon Puda, The Longest Journey captures the heights and depths of the 3,200-mile race, which riders must complete in eight days or face disqualification.

“My motivation is, yeah, I’m going to suffer for seven days, but somebody with HD – they’re suffering until the end,” 50-year-old Renato says in the film. “After seven days, I get off my bike, I’m feeling good, but with HD, each day makes it worse, gets worse, gets worse, until the end, you’re just a shell of the person you used to be.”

However, as in the RAAM, the Shaffers haven’t given up the fight against HD. Along with Nathan, they want the film to help bring a cure.

In contrast with most presentations of HD I’ve witnessed in the two decades since my mother’s diagnosis for the disorder, this often emotionally wrenching film left me, an HD gene carrier, feeling upbeat.

Seeing Sharon strive to overcome HD with the help of workouts and the RAAM team compete in an event that would challenge even the best-trained Olympic athletes, I felt newly motivated to exercise, a scientifically proven way to promote brain health.

I was also inspired to renew my commitment to advocacy.

Huntington’s is so cruel. It was refreshing to see someone offer a more hopeful interpretation.

Nathan, in his role as narrator, indicates this intention at the outset: “And you might be sitting there thinking, ‘Great, another movie about getting older, the age clock spinning faster, and the happiest times were when you were a child and hadn’t faced the music yet.’ Well, I’m hoping for all our sakes this movie’s a bit bigger than that.”

You can watch the film trailer by clicking here.

Marketing the film

Nathan and producer LeeJ Razalan, a RAAM supporter and Shaffer family friend, held a private screening of the film for friends and family members in San Diego on May 19. About 200 people attended the screening, which also served as a fundraiser.

In an interview after the screening, Nathan said he expects to release the film in the next three to six months. His previous films and programs have appeared on Netflix, Bravo, Hulu, and ESPN, and he hopes to place this film with an online streaming site, aiming for ten million viewers.

Nathan, LeeJ, and the Shaffers want to educate as many people as possible about HD, and to raise funds for research.

The professional quality of The Longest Journey, its potentially wide viewership, and its positive outlook could make it a successful awareness-building vehicle.

Renato Shaffer (left), Sharon Shaffer, LeeJ Razalan, and Nathan Apffel (photo by Gene Veritas, aka Kenneth P. Serbin)

Fighting until she can’t fight

We learn in the 75-minute documentary that Renato married his high school sweetheart despite knowing her father had HD and that she might have inherited the genetic defect.

“She’s fighting a good fight,” he says. “At this stage, her father was already pretty far gone. She’s 48 now, and at least she can still speak, she can still communicate. She still has a little bit of freedom to do what she needs to do, as opposed to her father, who pretty much gave up.

“When he found out that he had it, he tried to kill himself a couple times. Not Sharon. She’s fighting until she can’t fight anymore.”

“It scares me that my whole family’s out there,” Sharon, her speech slurred by HD, says about the dangers of the long race, which originated in 1982. “There’s been deaths. There’s been accidents, so many accidents.”

Some teams “never come back the same,” she adds. Already by Colorado, 24 teams had to quit the 2015 race, unusually grueling because of extremely hot weather in the West, as shown in the film.

In past races, Sharon helped as a support team member on the road. In 2015 HD kept her home. She flew to Maryland with other family members on the last day.

Valiant people

Everybody in The Longest Journey is on a personal mission against HD, including Nathan, whose HD-affected brother-in-law has two young, at-risk children.

Nathan skillfully interweaves scenes from the Shaffer team’s spectacular athletic performance with interviews with Sharon, Renato, his teammates, and the Shaffer daughters and their boyfriends.

Also interviewed is Sharon’s physician, Jody Corey-Bloom, M.D., Ph.D., the director of the Huntington’s Disease Society of America (HDSA) Center for Excellence for Family Services and Research at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Corey-Bloom explains the causes and symptoms of Huntington’s, providing a counterpoint to scenes in which we see Sharon speaking or fighting to overcome her condition.

As disabling symptoms gradually appear, HD patients “absorb” many “blows,” Dr. Corey-Bloom says.

“These are young people struck down at very productive points in their lives,” she adds. “There’s a valiant nature to people.[…] People are just so amazing in the way they handle it and deal with it and just try to keep going on.”

The desire to survive

The Longest Journey bravely ponders HD’s endpoint: death.

“I think the hard thing for people to […] talk about is that it’s fatal,” Dr. Corey-Bloom comments.

However, The Longest Journey doesn’t dwell on death. On the contrary, it focuses on the RAAM, the Shaffers’ efforts to defeat HD, and their large network of supporters.

Sharon is living with her HD, and her family along with her, to the greatest extent possible.

Sharon and her family do CrossFit exercises in the Shaffer garage, converted into a gym.

Nathan projects Sharon’s desire to survive and her family’s hopes for a cure by focusing on their expressions during interviews and moments of the RAAM.

“I still feel: what an amazing lady,” says Dr. Corey-Bloom, recalling that Sharon before HD onset was articulate and employed by a drug company. “She is tough. I am sure there must be days when she sort of thinks, ‘Why am I even bothering?’ She’s out there. She campaigns for things. Renato makes that grow.

“These are two people who, at least in San Diego, everyone looks up to.”

Sharon and Renato (photo by Gene Veritas)

Good-natured and humorous

Nathan balances the many difficult challenges of RAAM and the struggle against HD with moments of humor and optimism.

“It’s only the end of the first day, and I didn’t know a body could sweat as much as I’ve sweat in the last few hours,” he observes. “Our vehicle’s already starting to smell like day-old beef stroganoff.”

Alexa good-naturedly refers to sister Taylor as a “neat freak” who bought “ten Glade air fresheners” for the two vans the riders eat and sleep in when off the road.

“Mother nature beat us up a little bit,” observes teammate Jason Tate, 45, about the winds and heat.

These and other moments made the audience laugh.

Wisdom on HD

Through the interviews with the Shaffers and their friends, The Longest Journey offers much wisdom for the HD community.

The documentary exemplifies how families can unite – not split – when faced with the myriad challenges of HD. It also demonstrates how people like LeeJ, a friend with no blood connection to HD, provide crucial support for the cause.

As HD advocacy, The Longest Journey can potentially draw out of the “HD closet” those individuals and families needed as volunteers at events and in research studies and clinical trials.

Projecting optimism

Like The Lion’s Mouth Opens, Removing the Mask, and other films about HD, The Longest Journey offers a unique perspective.

After the screening, some attendees had tears in their eyes. However, the audience also applauded enthusiastically.

In talking with the audience, Nathan and LeeJ projected optimism.

I believe that optimism is indeed the film’s most important quality. I listened with great interest to Nathan and LeeJ’s recollections and their plans to attract viewers.

They recalled how the project was born after Nathan met Sharon, who was wearing a RAAM t-shirt, met at the 2015 HDSA-San Diego Hope Walk.

“Everything was serendipitous up to today,” said Nathan.

He explained that a film like this normally costs $300,000 to $500,000.

“The coolest part is that we made this one for 20,000 bucks,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot of blood and sweat equity put into this.”

Noting that he shot the film in 4K (ultra high-definition) resolution/high dynamic range, the next generation TV technology, he added: “We’ve future-proofed this film for the next ten years.”

As of that evening, Nathan and LeeJ still needed $8,000 to reach their $20,000 basic budget. In an e-mail the next day, LeeJ announced that donations from the screening amounted to $9,000.

LeeJ with racing bike to be raffled to support the HD cause (photo by Gene Veritas)

A raw and authentic story

They will now focus on marketing the film, including film festival submissions.

“This is my strongest [film], hands down,” Nathan told the audience. “I think it has the heart and the quality. I want to open or close Sundance or a really, really big festival.”

LeeJ calls The Longest Journey a “raw and authentic instrument to share the story of HD.” As a slogan to accompany the film, they’re considering “better together,” a reflection of its emphasis on family and community unity.

As Sharon states at the end of the film, in a message relevant for all HD families: “My advice would be to just continue to love yourself and your family.”

To donate to the Shaffers’ efforts to combat HD, click here.

Renato (left) and Nathan (photo by Gene Veritas)

Just living life: a focus on what matters most in coping with the risk of Huntington’s disease

As a carrier of the Huntington’s disease gene who’s reached the age of 56 without apparent HD symptoms, I believe that the emotional release associated with this blog – sharing my fears, hopes, and advocacy – has helped me stave off the inevitable onset of the disorder.

Ideally, I’d like to write in this blog weekly.

However, I don’t always have time, as evidenced by my taking nearly a month to post an update.

I regret the delay, because I have a growing list of critical developments in advocacy and research to report on, for example, the results of the 11th Annual HD Therapeutics Conference, held in February.

However, like so many people in this harried world, I juggle multiple demands involving family, career, and community.

Beyond that, those of us in the HD movement (and in other disease communities) have the added responsibility of caregiving, multiple forms of advocacy, and/or living with the disease or its threat.

Ever more conscious of life's brevity and my good fortune in remaining asymptomatic, I’ve been focusing on what matters most.

Being there for the family

One of my deepest fears about HD concerns losing the ability to support my family. Having seen my mother decline terribly because of HD, I long worried that I would become a financial and medical burden for my wife Regina and daughter Bianca, or, worse, that I might not see Bianca graduate from high school.

In my current stable health, I devote time and energy to helping Bianca transition from teenager to young adult.

A few weeks ago, I acquired a third family car so Bianca can drive my “old” Nissan Altima when she gets her license. While we’re fortunate to afford an extra car, it’s no luxury; it will allow her to drive to school, freeing Regina and me each from several hours of driving weekly. We also recognize that having a car is a rite of passage in America, especially in the auto-oriented culture of Southern California.

Once again, HD factored into our family decision-making: seeking to economize and plan prudently, we bought a used 2013 Honda Accord in good enough condition that, as Regina put it, could last me until retirement.

As my trusted mechanic put it, the four-cylinder Accord’s engine is “God’s gift to humanity” because of its reliability. As a teenager, I had always admired the Accord and daydreamed about owning one. Lately, I’ve come to detest driving because of the crazy Southern California traffic – I long for a mass-transit system like those in European cities – but the Accord has brought back some of the enjoyment.

Priority over the blog

I had planned on buying a car only when Bianca received her license later in the year, but a major connection in my HD journey saved me the headache of shopping for one by alerting me to the availability of the low-mileage Accord.

Rob Millum, a friend whom I met while serving on the board of the San Diego Chapter of the Huntington’s Disease Society of America (HDSA) and also a former member of the HDSA national board, works as a consultant for Affinity Development Group and administers the Costco Auto Program.

Rob’s a natural leader who cares about serving humanity. With his auto dealer’s license he helps people save money on nearly new cars and recreational vehicles. He doesn’t need to work full-time but does so to help support the HD community and other causes.

Rob and I have had deep conversations about HD, this blog, and life in general. When I couldn’t attend the 2011 HDSA convention to receive the HDSA Person of the Year Award, Rob accepted the honor in my name.

And Rob’s a darn good car guy, too!

At 2011 HDSA national convention, HDSA Chairman of the Board Don Barr (left), Rob Millum, and HDSA CEO Louise Vetter as Rob accepts HDSA Person of the Year Award for Kenneth P. Serbin (aka Gene Veritas) (photo by Ashley Miller).

In 2010, Rob helped me purchase my 2011 Altima through Costco’s no-hassle program; his nephew was the salesman. I then parted with my 1999 Corolla, my so-called “DNA car,” which had those highly symbolic letters on the license plate and which had carried me through many miles of HD advocacy (click here to read more).

We had upgraded to the bigger, sturdier Altima for safety reasons. Now it will become Bianca’s car.

Dealing with my credit union’s loan department, figuring out the high-tech gadgetry of the Accord (the owner’s manual is 595 pages long!), and other details of the purchase took priority over this blog.

Other aspects of my HD advocacy have also reduced the time for the blog, for example, raising funds for the 2016 HDSA-San Diego Hope Walk, set for April 10 (click here to donate to our team). Support for HDSA is essential in the quest for treatments.

Just living life

Despite the new financial load of car payments along with our mortgage and other payments, I felt grateful about handling the details of the Accord purchase for my family.

It’s reminded me how quickly our “miracle baby” – who tested negative for HD in the womb in 2000 – is growing up. The toddler I used to push in a stroller at the zoo now practices driving the Altima on the freeway. We’re starting the search for colleges.

I also remind myself to focus on the basics to help avoid HD onset: a healthy diet, good sleep habits, and regular, vigorous exercise. I can get lackadaisical about all three!

Spending more time on the essentials, as well as enjoying life more fully, takes time away from HD advocacy and blogging.

I feel that I need a break from the din of the Internet, the 2016 presidential campaign, the TV commercials, the political crisis in Brazil (the country I research), the e-mails and Facebook postings concerning HD, and all the other things that diminish my peace of mind.

The Easter Vigil Mass I attended on March 26 provided a respite, with two hours of chanting and scriptural readings, a stark contrast with our daily lives outside the sanctuary.

Knowing how many of my symptomatic "HD brothers and sisters" valiantly cope with the disease, I’m thankful for the chance to just live life.

Reshaping my career and life in the face of Huntington’s disease (and a note of hope)

In the second half of the 1990s, after learning of my mother’s diagnosis for Huntington’s disease, the 50-50 chance of having the genetic mutation unsettled me greatly. One way I dealt this was to throw myself into my career.

The fear that I would follow in my mother’s footsteps and lose my ability to work frequently caused me to panic. I was just 36, but the future seemed bleak because I witnessed in my mother and other HD patients the terrible devastation of the disease. She was declining rapidly. I thought my own decline could occur at any time and was convinced that, at best, I wouldn’t get very far into my 40s before HD hit.

Striving to achieve the academic milestone of my first book – the gold standard for recognition for professional historians – I sometimes wrote as many as 14 hours per day.

The quest for success – I was already thinking about my professional legacy – served as a powerful form of denial.

Family first

During that now seemingly crazy but certainly understandable response, I often neglected my relationship with Regina, my wife. Regina had stood by my side throughout our ordeals with HD, but the long hours I worked meant fewer hours to grow with her in the marriage.

After my initial impulse to get tested for HD right after my mother’s diagnosis in late 1995, I had sensibly postponed testing to gather information about the disease and avoid the risk of genetic discrimination. Regina agreed that we should delay starting a family until we sorted out all the issues HD presented for conceiving and raising children.

However, after a few years of waiting, and approaching her mid-30s, Regina wanted a child badly.

My decision to get tested in 1999 to prepare for having a family, my subsequent positive test result, our daughter Bianca’s negative result in the womb, and her birth the following year grounded me again in the basics of life and sealed my commitment to my family.

As Bianca grew, my mother headed towards death.

Soon, rather than working overtime on professional  issues, I stepped up my HD advocacy, although always behind the scenes because of the enduring fear of genetic discrimination.

I still spent much time away from Regina and Bianca, yet I also learned to manage my week more efficiently. I reserved special moments for them, especially on the weekends.

Raising Bianca along with Regina and watching her grow into a teenager have brought me great pride and joy. There is no more important task for parents.

Although no life is risk-free, we are profoundly relieved and grateful that she will never have HD.

In my work as chair of the history department at the University of San Diego (USD), I always say “family first” to co-workers needing time off to attend to critical matters such as an ill child.

A clear purpose

In the 18 months since I exited the “HD closet” and announced the adoption of a second academic field, I’m once again reshaping my career.

I’ve reflected deeply on what professional ambition means for me. Whereas career was once top priority, today I think a lot more about human solidarity.

At home, this means keeping the focus on family. In the academic venue, it’s about viewing career as a service to students, the profession, and society. In HD advocacy, it’s a collaborative effort to speed up the discovery of treatments to save tens of thousands of people like me from the disease.

My shift in attitude results partially from my experience as a parent and the perspective on life maturity provides.

However, the fight against HD also plays a very significant role.

I especially comprehend the importance of HD when I attend conferences such as last February’s Ninth HD Therapeutics Conference, sponsored by the CHDI Foundation, Inc.

With hundreds of participants focused on the single goal of defeating HD, the feeling in the room was electric – indeed, almost surreal. The atmosphere was so intense and the connections among the participants so strong that I felt as if I were communicating telepathically with some of them.

Similarly, learning that yet another person has died from HD or juvenile HD strikes me in the pit of the stomach and redoubles my sense of urgency as an advocate.

My academic career began as a search for professional and personal fulfillment fueled with a passion for Latin America and its history. My investigation into the history of science, technology, and medicine – which includes my HD advocacy and, in this blog, an ongoing, firsthand account of living at risk – transcends the professional and the personal. It builds awareness about the global, cutting-edge efforts to improve brain health.

In short, I now have a clear purpose.

Melding career and activism

My reshaped career melds my professional training with my advocacy work. As I wrote recently, at work I raised concerns about the long-term effects of head injuries suffered by college football players.

On April 3, I attended a USD-sponsored panel discussion on ethics and genetic testing, with a focus on the direct-to-consumer genetic testing service 23 and Me. Last November the federal Food and Drug Administration ordered the company to stop selling its saliva connection kit and genome service because the agency said it had failed to demonstrate the tests’ accuracy. I made an audio recording of the USD event and took photos of the participants, who included fellow faculty members as well as two deans. I plan to report on the event in this blog. This is the first time that I have covered a USD event as an HD blogger.

During the 2014-2015 academic year, I will be on sabbatical, that is, freed from teaching and administrative duties to focus exclusively on research and related projects. During that period I plan to work on a long-gestating book on former Brazilian revolutionaries who have come to positions of power. I also aim to continue my HD advocacy, and I will prepare a new course tentatively titled “A History of the Brain,” a subject not being taught in our History department nor in any science department.

I hope that course, to be taught after I return from leave, will inspire students to become historians and to build awareness of the centrality of the brain in our lives, as well as produce more humanistic, historically-oriented science majors.

In general, I feel a growing desire to help guide young people – surely a function of being a father of a teenager and a veteran professor, but also of my solidarity work in the HD movement.

Riding a whipsaw, but content

On April 10, I flew to Providence, RI, to take part in a conference at Brown University marking the 50^th anniversary of the U.S.-supported Brazilian military overthrow of the democratically elected President João Goulart.

This was the first meeting related to Brazilian studies I had attended in more than four years. The long hiatus was caused by my growing interest in the history of science, technology, and medicine.

It was also the first time I took part in a Brazilian studies event where people knew about my HD status. I received words of encouragement from several colleagues, including some who have made donations to the cause. I felt very much at ease, and I was thrilled to feel some of my old passion for Brazil return and to catch up with my colleagues.

I also brought to the conference a much sharper mental focus, obtained thanks to my participation in events such as the HD Therapeutics conferences, which, because they represent completely new and highly complex material about a life-or-death matter, require enormous concentration, energy, and openness to different perspectives.

By sheer coincidence, on April 12 the Rhode Island chapter of the Huntington’s Disease Society of America (HDSA) held its inaugural family education day at Butler Hospital, also in Providence. I took part, giving a presentation titled "Opportunities for HD Advocacy."

You can watch my presentation in the video below. For other presentations from the education day, click here to visit my Vimeo video album of the event. (I'll be adding additional presentations from the event in the next few days, so be sure to refer to the album again.)

Opportunities for Huntington's Disease Advocacy: A Presentation by Gene Veritas at Butler Hospital from Gene Veritas on Vimeo.

Immediately after the family education event I got a ride to the airport with Connecticut HD activist Laura Kokoska, who updated me on her HD-stricken mother, who is 71, and her own advocacy activities.

On the morning of April 13, I led the Serbin Family Team in the third annual Team Hope Walk of HDSA-San Diego.

Flying coast-to-coast twice in less than 72 hours (with connections in Chicago), jumping from one event to another in Providence, presenting talks on both Brazilian history and HD advocacy, arising early on the 13^th for the Hope Walk – it all felt like riding on a whipsaw.

No matter! I was excited to thrive and make yet wider and deeper connections in both spheres of my career.

As I've learned, my life must not serve my career, but my career my life.

A successful Hope Walk

The Hope Walk was a success, raising approximately the San Diego chapter goal of $44,000. Lead corporate sponsor Auspex Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego-based company conducting HD research, donated $10,000 to the event. Other major corporate donors included pharmaceutical firms Vertex and Lundbeck, both of which also have an HD focus.

For the second straight year, the Serbin Family Team was the top team fundraiser, with a total of more than $4,600. I wish to thank the 44 donors (individuals, couples, and families) who gave to the cause, as well as the team members who walked with us at Tidewater Park in Coronado, CA.

As in past years, the support of HD-focused firms and the participation of more than 300 people, including some of the scientists seeking treatments, lifted my spirits.

You can view the Serbin Family Team and other scenes from the Hope Walk in the photos below.

The Serbin Family Team of the 2014 HDSA-San Diego Team Hope Walk: from left to right, Dory Bertics, Bianca Serbin, Jane Rappoport, Gary Boggs, Yi Sun, Kenneth Serbin, Regina Serbin, Allan Rappoport (photo by Bob Walker)

Gene Veritas (aka Kenneth Serbin) presents 16-year-old juvenile HD patient Terry Leach with the iPad mini won by the Serbin Family Team for being the top Hope Walk team fundraiser (photo by Misty Oto).

HDSA-San Diego President George Essig addresses the crowd just before the Hope Walk begins (photo by Gene Veritas).

Hope Walk co-organizer Misty Oto addresses the crowd alongside Christian Rodriguez (left) and Terry Lopez, organizer of a Poway High School student group established last year to support the local HD community (photo by Gene Veritas).

Tim Schroeder (left), Gene Veritas, and HD support group facilitator Sandy Grofcsik

Walk participants LaVonne and Paul Cashman (left) and Jim Stone (photo by Gene Veritas)

Hope Walk participants await the start of the event (photo by Gene Veritas).