Columns

A Special Place for the Fabry Disease Community

One evening in mid-2008, my wife, Angela, and I were watching television at home and saw an advertisement about Victory Junction, a camp in Randleman, North Carolina. The camp has a race car theme in honor of the late NASCAR driver Adam Petty and serves children with…

What Fabry Disease Awareness Means to Me

When I think of awareness, I think of familiarity with Fabry disease. To me, spreading awareness means providing information and enticing people to learn enough about Fabry that they can recognize the signs in themselves or people they know. Being aware of the symptoms can lead to quicker diagnoses. Additional…

Learning About Fabry Disease Is Like Learning a Foreign Language

In 2003, when I attended the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) meeting that would determine whether to approve Fabrazyme (agalsidase beta), which became the first approved treatment developed specifically for Fabry disease in the U.S., I was given an opportunity to make comments to the decision-making panel. Having…

Managing Fabry Disease Requires Me to Put Mind Over Matter

Throughout my life, I’ve often put mind over matter to cope with the manifestations of my multisystem disease. I used this mindset during my 27-year military career to meet the rigorous physical demands of military life while managing Fabry symptoms, including: heart disease kidney disease lung disease chronic pain (small…