'I can't look past tomorrow, we don't know who else in the family has the illness'
Jackie Barnes does not have Huntington's disease but the suffering she has endured over the last quarter of a century can be attributed to the condition and the psychiatric problems it can entail, as can her desire not to contemplate what the future holds.
Jackie Barnes does not have Huntington's disease but the suffering she has endured over the last quarter of a century can be attributed to the condition and the psychiatric problems it can entail, as can her desire not to contemplate what the future holds.
CONFIRMED DIAGNOSIS: More than 900 families in Scotland are affected by Huntington's disease, an illness which has been devastating for Jackie Barnes. Picture: Colin Templeton
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More than one-third of Huntington’s disease sufferers live below the poverty line. Joan McFadden meets a family devastated by the neurological disorder
"I'd been with my husband Jim since we were both 15 and we were in our 30s when his dad started acting strangely," she recalls. "He was taken into hospital and Jim said vaguely that he'd been diagnosed with some illness and he might also get it. Jim was tested for Huntington's disease when our son Craig was just five and our daughter Ashley was four months old and we were told he had it."
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