num_pages: 343
description: Joe OBrien is a forty-four-year-old police officer from the Irish Catholic neighborhood of Charlestown Massachusetts. A devoted husband proud father of four children in their twenties and respected officer Joe begins experiencing bouts of disorganized thinking uncharacteristic temper outbursts and strange involuntary movements. He initially attributes these episodes to the stress of his job but as these symptoms worsen he agrees to see a neurologist and is handed a diagnosis that will change his and his familys lives forever: Huntingtons Disease.Huntingtons is a lethal neurodegenerative disease with no treatment and no cure. Each of Joes four children has a 50 percent chance of inheriting their fathers disease and a simple blood test can reveal their genetic fate. While watching her potential future in her fathers escalating symptoms twenty-one-year-old daughter Katie struggles with the questions this test imposes on her young adult life. Does she want to know? What if shes gene positive? Can she live with the constant anxiety of not knowing?As Joes symptoms worsen and hes eventually stripped of his badge and more Joe struggles to maintain hope and a sense of purpose while Katie and her siblings must find the courage to either live a life at risk or learn their fate.
language: English
title: Inside the O'Briens
publisher: Gallery Books