Like A Punch In The Face
“Parkinson’s Disease… is incurable, right?”
I bit back panic as I wondered aloud.
A pause.
Dr H nodded. A bespectacled middle aged woman wearing a messy ponytail, the neurologist had the no-nonsense vibe of a physics teacher.
She said, “Yes, but it can be managed.”
I don’t remember what she said after that. I was momentarily besieged by memories of a frail, hunched woman.
I blurted out, “My grandma had Parkinson’s.”
Dr H nodded again, her fingers typing away. She wasn’t a chatterbox.
And neither was I that day.
I know I should have asked more questions but my mind was drawing a blank and my body so tense that my knuckles had turned white from clutching the armrest.
I left Dr H’s clinic in a daze.
—
My name is Elrica. I am 35 years old and I have Parkinson’s Disease. This is part of a larger collection of writing that records my experience living with the neurological condition.
