JHD Initiative

It wasn’t her real home, but Mia Stollenwerk embraced it anyway.

Juvenile Huntington’s disease attacked her brain and forced her into a wheelchair, requiring that she move away from her family and into the full-time care facility on Birka Lane.

She brought along her prom dress — the one she wore at this time last year, when friends threw her a special prom, worrying she would be too sick to make it to the real one.

She brought the pictures of her dad, who died of the same disease three years ago.

She had the book she wrote about the move, about what it’s like to have a terrible disease and have to leave your family.

She was making plans to celebrate her 15th birthday here Tuesday when all these things and more were lost in a fire.

But, just as Mia faces almost everything else in her life, she took the news with bravery and resilience.

“I explained to her that there was a fire and that most of her stuff, probably, we wouldn’t get back,” said Mia’s mom, Linda Stollenwerk. “She said to me: ‘It’s just stuff.’ She told me it would be OK.”