A father-of-four from Tennessee has died after battling a rare degenerative brain disorder that he was diagnosed with about a year ago.
The 33-year-old’s wife, Danielle, said she started noticing something was wrong with her husband more than a year ago when he began experiencing rapid memory loss, she wrote on a crowdfunding website.
“He would get so confused I would have to label the rooms in our home,” she said. After a month of testing at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Tony was diagnosed with the fatal disease—which currently has no cure. He was given six to twelve months to live.
Danielle told the magazine that during Tony’s final days, he was unable to walk, talk, or communicate. But she said her husband was fighting until his last breath.
“I was so heartbroken. I feel an empty hole. Everything reminds me of him. Every time I look at our babies, I think about how they’ll never know him,” she said.
In a recent update on GoFundMe, Danielle thanked everyone who supported her family through the difficult time.
“I would like to ask for prayers of strength and peace, especially for our daughters. Tony has always been so strong. He fought a damn good fight,” she wrote. “Our hearts are broken but we take comfort in knowing this fight is over.”
At the beginning stages of the disease, patients exhibit failing memory, behavioral changes, lack of coordination, and visual disturbances. As it progresses, mental deterioration becomes pronounced and involuntary movements, blindness, weakness of extremities, and coma may occur, according to the institute.
The most common form of CJD is sporadic where there are no known risk factors for the disease. It accounts for 85 percent of all cases. Other forms of CJD include genetic, which is inherited through family members, and acquired, which is transmitted by exposure to brain or nervous system tissue.
