Sex, Not Love

“Why?” I eyed the folder. “You have results finally?”

Uncle Joe looked to Jayce. “I know you boys are close. But medical information is private.”

Jayce looked between our uncle and me. “It’s fine. Hunter can stay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

My uncle pulled up a chair alongside Jayce’s bed. “Why don’t you have a seat, too, Hunter?”

When someone tells you to have a seat, bad news comes next. “I’d rather stand.”

He nodded and looked down at the unopened folder on his lap for an excruciatingly long time. Taking off his glasses, he rubbed his tired eyes before starting.

“We all assumed your mother had Parkinson’s disease. She had the classic symptoms. And, well, you know she refused to go to a doctor for a workup.”

“She didn’t have Parkinson’s?” I asked.

“Obviously, there’s no way to be certain, but I no longer think so.”

“Does that mean I don’t have Parkinson’s?” My brother said.

Uncle Joe shook his head. “No. You don’t have Parkinson’s, son.”

Jayce’s head tilted back to the ceiling, and his shoulders slumped with relief. “Thank God.”

The excitement I felt was short-lived after I took a look at my uncle’s face. He wasn’t relieved like we were. I suddenly thought sitting down was a good idea.

“There are some conditions that have very similar symptoms to other conditions. Even yesterday when I learned all about the symptoms you’ve encountered over the years, it still sounded like Parkinson’s. And while seizure isn’t a common ailment of those suffering from the disease, there is a known comorbidity between Parkinson’s and epilepsy.”

“So I have epilepsy?”

“No, you don’t have epilepsy either. I’m sorry. I’m confusing things by going into all of this explanation. I just wanted you to understand that sometimes symptoms can present in a manner that leads to a diagnosis, but without proper testing, there’s no way to truly confirm what you’re dealing with. Your mother is gone almost two years now, and we’re still guessing since she refused testing. We’ll never be one-hundred-percent certain, but the genetic condition you have now leads us to believe she didn’t suffer from Parkinson’s either.”

“Genetic condition? What’s wrong with me?”

My uncle’s eyes teared up. “You have a genetic condition known as Huntington’s disease, Jayce. Yours is considered juvenile Huntington’s disease because of your age when you first started to experience symptoms. It’s an inherited defect in a single gene, an autosomal dominant disorder. It causes progressive degeneration of nerve cells in the brain, which impacts a person’s ability to move, among other things. That’s why you’ve been tripping and had some hand tremors. At the start, it can mimic things someone might do when they’ve had too much to drink.”

“At the start? What else is it going to do to me?”

“It’s difficult to know for sure, especially in cases of juvenile-onset Huntington’s, because it’s rare. But most people will have impaired movement and cognitive issues.”

“Cognitive? It’s going to affect the way I think? Like how? Mom always seemed depressed, but we assumed that was because she didn’t feel good.”

“Most likely that was due to Huntington’s. Dr. Kohan is going to come in and talk to you in detail in a little while. He’s an expert in the field and will go over everything and answer all of your questions. I know the basics, but since juvenile Huntington’s is not common and the symptoms present differently, he’s in a better position to explain things to you.”

My head spun, and my brother looked shell shocked.

“Is there a cure for Huntington’s?” I asked.

The look on my uncle’s face answered the question. “Not as of today, no. But science makes new breakthroughs all the time.”

“But people live with it, right?”

“There is a shortened life expectancy with the disease.”

“Shortened?” My brother finally spoke up. “How much shortened?”