Month: May 2016

Three More Tips on How to Cope with HD

More Tips on How to Cope with HD:

HI everyone! Here’s a few more tips on how to deal with HD. Again just try a few of them out, it can really help a lot through the hard times:

4. Exercise

Find out what types of sports you like and try it out my sister plays tennis every night that is a fantastic stress buster or if you like baseball play that, or soccer, whatever it is join a group or play with some friends.

Do a yoga class or meditation.
I have personally done both of these and I assure you that it if you really stick with it, you can start feeling happier, more energized, more refreshed, and a lot less stressed. It feels so relaxing especially if you do deep breathing exercises along with it. It helps in times when you feel frustrated or you start overthinking things and start feeling overwhelmed. I need to do this more often. At times, I forget to do yoga or I don’t plan it in but every time I go back into it helps me focus and be more present.

If you can’t take a yoga class you can always do it in the comfort of your own home too. Try some videos on Youtube.com. If you’re just starting out with yoga, do beginners yoga first, start off with the basics and then slowly work your way up to the more experienced levels.

There’s this good website to try out if you want to do some free yoga at your house for free that I use:

www.grokker.com (Its great check it out!)

Trust me I know yoga may seem hard at first, but its fun. All you need is a yoga mat, some good light clothes, and drink plenty of water afterwards.

Do Just Dance. It’s fun and its great to dance at home on the Wii. I have 3 different types of them and they always make me laugh and have a good time. You can even do it with your friends or your family. My sister joins in sometimes its great! I just stared doing the Just Dance 16 one and it has some good songs on it. haha

Whenever things just get too much to deal with go outside for a nice walk around the neighborhood. It’s great it clears your mind! It also helps to have a dog! If you have one take it out on a walk. I have a cute dog and I walk her around all the time. There’s something about going out there with the wind hitting your face, all your cares just wash away and it doesn’t seem so bad and when you see the horizon off in the distance or seeing the sun shining through the clouds and you walk around remember how special your life is and how amazing you are and remember why you’re here and what you want to do in life and then your problems don’t seem as bad.

Try jogging, riding a bike, hiking, swimming, or go for a walk on the beach or walk through a good bike/horse trail. There are tons of things that help.

5. Read or Write in a journal

Reading to me always gave me something fun to read even when my life was falling apart. It gives you hope, it helps you know that you’re not alone and it gives you the strength to keep going.

Pick some type of genre that you love, it could be anything from romance to mysteries or fantasies like The Lord of the Rings. For me, it was sci-fi and young adult books that I loved most. I love the way those books are written. Try reading Harry Potter books too. I know I’m a nerd, but I don’t care because these books really helped me through some of the worst times in my life growing up with HD it taught me to never give up and to stand up for myself and it was just plain funny at times cracking me up. Just being in different worlds like The Wizarding World or Hogwarts and following Harry’s journey through his life growing up and stopping Lord Voldemort really lifted me up and gave me faith that my life too could be magical and that it could be worthwhile too if I kept going!

If you like reading, join a book club so you can talk about some of your favorite books with others. Connect with people and learn and grow.

Also start up a journal. Sometimes just writing your feelings out, just putting them down on paper can be the most therapeutic thing of all.  I did it all the time. I have so many journals now filled with all of my stress from HD. You can freewrite, writing down anything you feel at the time with no judgement, you can write down all the things your grateful for in your life right now, you can write down goals and dreams and passions you wish to follow in your life. The sky’s the limit! Just do it!

Try it and if it doesn’t work for you that’s ok, I don’t always like to do that either, but it works. Just get all your feelings out, its better than bottling it all up inside.

6. Look at some Inspiring Quotes Online

Sometimes on a bad day, all you need are a few quotes to lift you back up again. This helped me a lot back when i was dealing with my dad’s HD, but it also helps me now with the aftermath of living that life. It was hard and it gave me PTSD, but most of all depression, and I know there’s a lot of people that suffer from those things these days and sometimes you just feel downright sad for no reason and it sucks, so maybe just take my advice scroll down facebook or yahoo or google and type in inspirational quotes or quotes about hope and faith and the next thing you know you are feeling better. It gives you the strength to keep going. It did for me, and still does!

Join pinterest.com and start looking around for some good inspirational quotes or things that you love. After a little while it starts sticking in your head and instead of focusing on the negative aspects of life, you’ll start thinking positively.

That’s it for today! I hope a lot of this helps you all very much!

Doing these things while also going through HD may help you out when you least expect it. So, try some of these tips out.

There are more tips to come, but for now enjoy these and have a great week! God Bless!

-Paula

My Life At-Risk For Huntington’s Disease : Genetic Testing

Hey guys! I’m back hope you’re all having a good weekend! I just wanted to share some more of my story with you all. For those of you who may not know, there’s a genetic HD test to see if you have HD or not. Those carrying the gene will either test positive or negative on it, so there’s a 50-50 chance I’ll get it. Nice odds! One of the worst parts about HD is that it can be handed down from family member to family member, so my dad’s side of the family has the gene. I found out that HD has been going back in my family for generations. Just think of how many people it’s affected not just in my family, but in countless others too? Only three of my family members tested positive for HD though. Thank God all the rest are ok!

My Aunt Tracy Martin, was only about 44 years old when she passed away from HD, I didn’t get to know her very well because my family is from Ohio and I live in Southern California, but I remember back when she was younger growing up I always loved visiting her and her 2 cats. My grandpa Dick Martin had HD too, he’s my dad’s dad. I used to visit Grandpa in the hospital every year we went out to see him in Ohio. He was in a nursing home just like my dad is now and he died from it as well. He was older though. He died when I was in high school and then Tracy died right after that. It was hard for me to deal with it all.  I will always remember them both! At least my dad is still alive.

11187803_10202853440055987_2017598809493245269_oFor me, right now I’m pretty happy with who I am and what I’ve done for myself. It’s taken a long time for me to get in a good place, but I’m doing what I love, and I’m getting older. I’m 26 years old now and I’m living out my dreams! I’m a writer, writing is one of my biggest passions in life. Its where I can be me all the time. I’m writing a dystopian novel right now and I’m almost done with it and I’m going to get it self-published pretty soon! It may take awhile but I’m going to do it! I’m reading a lot of sci-fi books, and young adult books, and dystopian novels, too. I’m also apart of a great new online feminist book club online called OurSharedShelf hosted by Emma Watson and I have two blogs this one and one about my dog Cinnamon.

I have a good life and a great family who supports me and loves me! What more could I ask for?12963393_10204581825264537_4072123501553355064_n1116038_4574609342216_1280786994_o Just thinking of where my life used to be back when my dad had HD, its like my whole life turned around from a very negative experience to an extremely happy one. I’m so grateful for that!

However, the one thing I am still having trouble with is deciding whether or not to take that HD test or not! It’s one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make. Awhile ago, I was sure I wanted to take it, but now I’m not so sure. It keeps going back and forth and back and forth in my mind like ping pong balls bouncing around. A part of me wants to know the truth, I want to find out whether I have it or not. My dad never did and that only ever caused my mom and dad anxiety.

I can’t just push it all away and pretend like it’s not there. It’s like having the elephant in the room ya know? Other times, I feel like maybe I don’t want to know. I’m a very sensitive person, so if I found out that I have HD, it may mess me up a lot. Just thinking about all of this, puts a lot of stress on me. I think of my sister too who is one year older than me. She may get it too! What if she already has it? What if I already have it? Sometimes I think of these things, but it never does me any good. The only time I ever feel better is when I give it to God, he’s truly there listening to me and then I feel better. I can’t sit around wondering about these things, I just can’t because it’s probably not even true. I also wonder what would I do if I decided to have kids someday, knowing if I had HD would definitely help me know if I should have kids or not. I’ve already made up my mind that I don’t want to send this disease off anymore, especially not to my kids. I won’t do it! See the kinds of things I have to think about all the time? These are not the kinds of things I want to be worried about at such a young age, but its true for so many people like me and I just hope someday we won’t have to. It sucks too because I want to have a life full of happiness and joy, not one where I sit around mustering these thoughts in my head.

10292497_10202563554609032_1168833292099090508_nHowever, deep down in my soul, I know I need to know the truth, so I’m going to take that test, but only when I’m ready. I think I’ll know when that is, so until then I am going to live my life to the fullest because life is amazing and I don’t want to miss any second of it! I’ve always wanted to write a novel and look at me now, I’m actually writing my novel. Maybe if I hadn’t had HD in my life, I wouldn’t be where I am today. It made me stronger, so maybe bad things happen in life happen for a reason maybe we all go through these difficult times, these dark times of confusion and chaos not so that we can be defeated, but so that we can grow into who we really were meant to be. So, I guess if I did end up testing negative it wouldn’t matter to me because whatever happens happens for a reason, maybe me going through this is just making me stronger, giving me more hope, more faith than I ever thought I could. So just think of that when you’re about to get tested or not? Think of how far you’ve come and how strong you really are and what you’ve faced, just know that if you test negative or positive to this HD test, you can handle it because God made you strong enough to overcome any obstacle! You can do this! So can i!

I hope this helps some of you with your worries and doubts about all of this. Just know you aren’t alone in this! Many others like me, have gone through this too sometimes you just have to make the impossible decisions whether you want to or not. Anything is possible if you just believe and have faith! Just think it all through before you make your decision to take this HD test. If you want to take it, great! It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it! If not, that’s ok too, like me you may just need some more time to wait it out. Have patience and know that everything will be ok!

Testing may seem a bit daunting, but it’s not as bad as it may seem! I mean miracles happen every day right? What if you ended up testing negative on this disease? Think of how much relief you’d have just knowing that you don’t have to worry about getting it or not anymore.

What if they came up with a cure to stop HD for good someday soon? Wouldn’t that be awesome do you know how many lives that could touch? Think of how many people right now that are actually out there working on a cure for this disease. There has been so many cutting edge research out there where they’ve been testing for a cure! Remember that and take care!