On April 12th of this year, Linda started losing her balance when she went out for her nightly walk with her husband. Over the following days she progressively became more unsteady and kept falling. She was admitted to the hospital on April 17th for neurological testing to understand what was causing her independent mobility problems. After ruling out all other neurological disorders, the diagnosis turned out to be CJD. The neurologists told us that there was very little they knew about this "one in a million" disease, that unfortunately there was nothing else they could do, and referred us to palliative care. Her condition deteriorated so quickly she was released to home hospice care on April 28th. She was at home with her family when she peacefully passed away at the age of 74, on May 5th, 2020.
Our family was devastated by this fatal diagnosis and helplessly watched as Linda's health shifted rapidly from a healthy, active, able-bodied person to the end of her life in just 3 short weeks. Please help us all learn more about this disease by donating to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation CJD in memory of Linda Hawbaker.
Our goal is to fund one (or multiple) research grants to study this horrible neurological disease. There are currently no known treatments to slow down or reverse CJD’s aggressive neurological progression. So much more needs to be done to understand this disease, while we continue to ask ourselves, “How did this happen?” “Where did she contract this?” “When did she contract this?” and of course, “Why did this happen to someone so full of life?”