Just a Slight Tremor: the Invisible Symptoms of Disease

After sending out a staff-wide email about a Fox Foundation fundraiser I helped organize, I had a co-worker approach me. She said, “I had no idea you had Parkinson’s. How does it affect you?”

I was both appreciative of and thrown off guard by such a direct question. My mind raced for a moment before I finally settled on, “for now, just a slight tremor.”

This has become my go-to answer. It feels safe and expected. It is the symptom that people are most familiar with when they think about Parkinson’s.

While it’s true that a tremor is probably the most telltale sign of Parkinson’s that I have, it’s not the whole story, not by a long shot.

As it turns out, dopamine is an extremely vital part of our body’s ability to function. Without it, everything kind of starts to go to hell (to use the medical term). If you Google Parkinson’s plus virtually any imaginable symptom, some connection is bound to pop up.

I’m grateful that, at least for now, I don’t always “look sick” or present as a person with Parkinson’s. But, even on my best days, when the combination of exercise and medicine is working overtime to mask my visible symptoms, what’s going on beneath the surface…well, that’s another story.