Caregiving Unfiltered
— Crystal Onyema

Crystal Onyema is a Texas-based writer with expertise in healthcare, education, and research-driven digital content. Her personal experience caring for a loved one with Parkinson’s informs her work and reflects her deep respect for the Parkinson’s community.

Columns

When love can’t put things back on track, it finds a new way to keep going

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…

Columns

When I became the unofficial offensive line in Parkinson’s quiet game

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…

Columns

Lessons revealed in the quiet moments of Parkinson’s caregiving

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…

Columns

Sometimes being a Parkinson’s caregiver means just standing by

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,…

Columns

When early memories of Parkinson’s came full circle

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…


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