WeAreHD.org - The Social Support Network for People Living with Huntington's Disease

Hard prognosis no match for Chelmsford woman's unbeatable spirit

In the fall of 2006, in her second year at Rivier College in Nashua, a girl looked at Meghan Sullivan and said, "Meg, it's only 10 in the morning. I can't believe you're already drunk!"

She wasn't. An inevitable genetic curse was showing itself.

A few months later, on Valentine's Day 2007, as Sullivan poured herself a glass of lemonade, her body again betrayed her. The glass fell. So did her heart. She looked at her mother, Cheryl. "Mom, I know I have Huntington's." A month later, a neurologist agreed.

Nearly three years later, Meghan, 22, sits on a couch in her Chelmsford home. Every so often, her body twitches hard, like a big hiccup. She doesn't drive anymore. Her mother helps bathe, dress and feed her. She can't hold down a full-time job.

She knows how this is going to go.

Huntington's disease, which affects more than 30,000 Americans, slowly kills off brain cells, wasting away a person's mind and body. Eventually, she won't be able to speak, or swallow, or walk. And then the disease, for which there is no cure, only gets worse.

So why does Meghan Sullivan bother? Why get a college degree? Why hold down two part-time volunteer jobs? And why talk about what is so painful?

Because a long time ago, her father -- whose genes gave her the disease -- told her, "if you get this, never lay down and die."

John Sullivan, a Lowell police captain, died of Huntington's disease on Sept. 15, 2008, after living with it for nearly

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