Douglas “DJ” Lucken, whose struggle against a debilitating genetic disease was chronicled in The Sentinel, died Saturday at his home in Lemoore surrounded by his family. He was 19. “Our family has been so touched by the support from the community, especially the students at Lemoore High School,” said Christina Zigler, Lucken’s mother. A memorial car wash is scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday in the Lemoore Kmart parking lot; students also held a candelight vigil for DJ Sunday night. “These kids have demonstrated so much compassion in our time of need. Just as they said that Doug amazed and inspired them, these students have amazed and inspired my family by how quickly they rallied to honor him. In just a day they put together a car wash and candlelight vigil.” Students at Lemoore High have been very supportive ever since a story about Lucken ran in The Sentinel in January 2010. The students, staff and school administrators immediately created a special fundraiser called “Doug’s Daily Dollar,” which successfully raised $10,000 to help with Lucken’s treatment. He was also voted prom king at the 2010 Lemoore High School junior-senior prom. The vote had been nearly unanimous. Principal Rodney Brumit said Lucken received several hundred votes, while his only competitor got about five. “It was pretty touching,” Brumit said in a previous interview with The Sentinel. “This group of kids, they’re pretty amazing.” As an incoming freshman at LHS, Lucken had an unreserved passion for school and anything that allowed him to learn — he also had dreams of becoming a pro motocross rider. In September 2006, his dream ended when he had his first seizure while outside washing his mom’s truck. He was rushed to the hospital and put on eight different medications — mostly all to help control seizures. The doctor caring for him advised that he undergo genetic testing for the extremely rare and “unlikely” disease Lafora — an inherited and progressive type of epilepsy caused by a mutated gene. The gene is created when two rare genes, one from each parent, are combined. On Aug. 6, 2007, nearly six months after the tests, he and his family were devastated by the news that he did in fact have the Lafora-causing gene. Reported in only 11 children in the U.S. and 200 worldwide, Lafora disease begins in late childhood or adolescence and becomes progressively worse over time, usually taking the life of the person in two to 10 years. A little more than a month ago, Lucken had a bad episode of seizures and it was decided he should be kept home and under hospice care. When he died this weekend, there were no seizures; he simply went to sleep. “It was very peaceful,” Zigler said. “There was no pain. He just wasn’t ever really the same after that last bout of seizures he had a while back. But we did get one last smile from him before he went. He was a fighter, he fought and fought for years.”