Linda

“I know that Fabry can be an obstacle, but it’s also a huge opportunity to educate people. I want to give them hope and support.”

Linda is a licensed marriage and family therapist. Fabry disease runs through three generations: her father inherited it from his own mother. He reached 51, outliving siblings who died in their twenties and thirties, but spent his last ten years confined to bed. The strain touched everyone close to him. Linda was born with it too, and made a choice not to have biological children, so the disease would end with her.
For decades she had no symptoms she couldn’t manage, until a hike set off a sudden, racing heartbeat that sent her to the hospital and raised her risk of stroke. With her husband, Bob, by her side, she focused on taking care of herself.
Today, her work with clients also helps her live with Fabry disease: not only its toll on the body, but its weight on the mind. Linda knows she can be more than her condition. As she likes to remind herself, only an apostrophe stands between Impossible and I’m possible.