Every year reporters immerse themselves in a story that resonates. For me, Being together, living apart, is that story. It explores the difficult transition many couples will face, but seldom think about until they go through it – the one from the family home to the long-term care facility, from a shared bed to separate sleeping quarters, from best friend to caregiver.
When I first met my partner, before we even formally started dating, he told me about his mom who was in the hospital with Huntington’s disease. He told me about how she slowly started losing her reasoning, her motor skills, due to the degenerative disease.
He told me how Huntington’s is genetic – the child of a person with Huntington’s has a 50 per cent chance of developing the disease. He wanted to prepare me for what I could be facing in the future if we ended up going steady.
We will celebrate four years together in January. We moved across the country together and he is my best friend. But I would be lying if I said the challenges that may lie ahead – he has yet to be tested for the gene – never cross my mind or don’t scare me a little.
He holds out for a cure – research has made incredible progress in this area. As do I. But if and when the time comes for us to make the difficult transition from home to hospital, I hope we can do it with as much grace, courage and love as Penny and Ed, and the others couples I have gotten to know over the past few weeks.
In the journalism world, I’m what you would call pretty “green.” This is my second job. I have much to learn. But in the year and a half I’ve been out of college I’ve learned pretty quickly that the best part of being a reporter is the reporting. Getting to know the people in the articles is what I like the most about my job and I’m always so honoured when someone decides to trust me with their story.
