A wonderful thing social media, and wonderful things can be influenced by our collective interest, influence and conversations.

My friend Joey Uriegas from Austin, Texas has Huntington’s Disease. It’s not pretty, but it’s not too terrible. His Mom had it. And lots of her family have it down in the valley. But the only one I know is Joey. We were running buddies from 6th – 8th grade. We graduated from Westlake High School in 1981.

In all the years we ran into each other over the following 26 years, Joey was always the first one to offer a hug, to encourage contact and to shine about all the great things in his life. He did know he was going to be feeling the effects of the Huntingtons at some point, “Cause I’ve got this Huntington’s, you know.” He would say it, and I never knew what it meant. It seemed dramatic. I do remember his Mom was kinda stuck back in the dark bedroom. She was loving and joyous when she was about, but mostly she was quiet and invisible.

So, two weeks ago I went to see my friend Joey. He lives about a mile and a half from my house. Just on the other side of Westlake High from me.

Of course I had no idea what to expect. And I have not done my research into what the disease actually means or does. What I know is that Joey is still very aware of what is happening around him. As we sat in his house, the large flatpanel TV was blasting Two Smoking Barrels and he kept asking me if I had seen it. “It’s a great movie. Have you seen this one. It’s a Guy Ritchey. Do you know Guy Ritchey? He’s like Tarrantino. Kinda like Tarrantino.”

Nothing odd about that line of questioning or even the pauseless pace. But it came around about 4 times while we were sitting there.

I gave Joey my iPod with 60 gigs of music and some noise-cancelling headphones. I dialed in ACDC and he was OFF! “This is great! How do you turn it up? This is awesome!”

And when I got home I was sort of tired and also challenged trying to think of how I could help Joey. He needed money to fix his dishwasher. And he needed to see the dentist. And as another mutual friend said, “His family is not made of money. It’s just a bad situation. And Joey knows it too.”

Thus here is the site My Friend Joey. And at the moment it is only an idea. But with a place to grow the idea I can begin building on it. And I hope if you know Joey you will contact him via this site. And if you don’t know Joey, but know about Huntington’s or just want to talk to Joey that you will also feel encouraged to reach out via email or chat.

And that’s the extent of it for now. If you’ve got a spare dishwasher let me know immediately.

Thanks,

John McElhenney @jmacofearth
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