Caregiving Unfiltered
— Crystal Onyema

For a long time, I saw Parkinson’s disease as a problem that just needed the right fix. Like a car that had stalled or hit a rough patch, I thought it could be tuned until it ran smoothly again. My Uncle Brandon had faced tougher challenges before. He wasn’t…

It still feels like yesterday when Tony Romo was having a monster game. By early in the third quarter, the hometown Dallas Cowboys were up 27-3, and it looked like they were finally going to pull it off. Then it unraveled. Three interceptions later, they had lost 34-30. Another season…

The drive home turned into a quiet ceremony, a gentle transition between worlds I didn’t yet have the language for. After spending long days with my uncle Brandon, who had Parkinson’s disease, I would get in the car, turn on something soothing and timeless like Sade, and let the…

I previously wrote about how Parkinson’s disease did not arrive in my life all at once, but through memory, in moments that only made sense years later, when I found myself replaying the past, trying to understand what I had missed and why it still mattered. Caregiving, however,…

Growing up, I didn’t know much about Parkinson’s disease. I’m not a doctor or a scientist. I’m just a family member who learned about Parkinson’s through real life, first by watching and later by caring for my uncle Brandon, who lived with the disease until he passed away. Before…