Party of 9 – a Column by Betty Vertin

I love to read, but finding time to sit down with a good book can be challenging in my busy house. As a mom to seven and a primary caregiver to my three sons with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), quiet time is often interrupted by my children. Occasionally, however,…

One of my favorite early-summer memories is from when my sons Max and Rowen were younger. Both lovely little boys — one blond-haired and blue-eyed, the other dark-haired and brown-eyed — squealed with laughter upon discovering a frog in our front yard. Max held the frog up in his hands…

There is joy after a diagnosis of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). There is joy after the loss of ambulation. There is joy in the midst of watching Duchenne slowly work its progressive, muscle-wasting way through my sons Max, 18, Rowen, 14, and Charlie, 12. That may be hard…

When I stopped working at a job away from home in 2007, I never imagined it would be a permanent change. I was pregnant with my third child, Chance, who is now 16, and had decided that I wanted to stay home full-time with my kids. On my last day…

I forgot how scary hope can be. There was a time, a few short months, when I realized I was giving up. I accepted that Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) would continue to progress in my sons, and there wasn’t much I could do about it. I hadn’t thrown in…

“The stages of Duchenne.” I remember seeing this heading on many of the websites I obsessively read when I learned that my three sons, Max, 18, Rowen, 14, and Charlie, 12, had Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). The stages of Duchenne are like a timeline of disease progression. Parent…

I’m a small-town girl. I love that I can get from one end of my hometown in rural Nebraska to the other in a few short minutes, that there is never traffic, and that the only time I get stuck in a crowd is if I go to the county…

Note: This column describes the author’s sons’ experiences with a trial dose of Translarna (ataluren) in the U.S. Not everyone will have the same response to treatment. Consult your doctor before starting or stopping a therapy. I’m a mother to three sons with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD): Max, 18,…

How does Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) affect me as a mom? Am I numb? Have I accepted it? Has DMD killed a piece of my heart? Will it keep taking parts of me? These questions have been weighing on my heart, but it’s been hard to put them into…

It was almost midnight on a Friday night, and for hours, my husband, Jason, and I hadn’t seen or heard from our oldest son, Max, who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). In most situations, we would’ve been out of our minds with fear. But that night, we were smiling.