Columns

Last in a series. Read part one. Recently, I had terrible abdominal pain in the middle of the night. It was so bad that I was doubled over and couldn’t sleep. I thought it was appendicitis, or kidney stones, or maybe diverticulosis. I tried to walk it off and…

October is a busy month in my household. We celebrate both my husband’s birthday and our wedding anniversary. It’s been 19 years this year, and I can say that we never imagined where we’d be now when we said “I do.” When you plan your wedding, you don’t always think…

If you are at all familiar with Parkinson’s disease, you’re probably aware of the importance of medication. It’s used for symptom control only, as there is no known cure or disease-modifying therapy for Parkinson’s. Most Parkinson’s symptoms are caused by a lack of dopamine signaling in the brain.

When it comes to weird and unexpected symptoms, Parkinson’s disease is the gift that keeps on giving. My grandfather had Parkinson’s, yet when I was diagnosed with it, the only symptom I’d heard of before was tremors. As I eventually learned, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

First in a series. We were careening down our gravel road at breakneck speed. “Can you go any faster?” I yelled at my husband, John. Gravel flew out from under the car tires, squirrels scattered, and my eyeballs were sweating. We live on a peaceful farm that is accessible by…

My dad has always been my superhero. When I was a child, he was the person who would rush home with pizza, sugary drinks, and laughter to break the tension of the day. As I grew older and began navigating the complexities of high school, I knew I could pour…

Parkinson’s disease is not only degenerative but incurable, which means it gets worse, to some degree, every day. While we still don’t have any proven disease-modifying treatments — those that will actually stop, reverse, and cure Parkinson’s — advances in technology have helped to control symptoms. And as I’ve…

Dear readers, I have been writing my column, “The Bright Side,” for Parkinson’s News Today for almost three years. How fast that went! I’m always amazed at how the days seem to move slowly, yet the years pass quickly. When I first agreed to write the column, I…

Many ancient civilizations believed that the Earth was flat. This worldview was tethered to the simple, familiar image of a flat plane with edges you could fall off. Of course, the Earth was never flat, but thousands of years ago, it may have seemed that way. That was the…

Anniversaries can be good and bad, loving celebrations or reminders of past tragedies. For me, the anniversary of my diagnosis with Parkinson’s disease is a bit of both. It was awful and tragic and life-altering in some ways. But it’s also the day we named the monster that…