I Was Too Young to Have Parkinson's

This athlete and coach was shocked to find out what was happening to her body, but she refused to let it stop her from staying active and helping fellow patients.

- LESLIE PEPPER

One day when I was around 40, I was driving my kids to school when my right arm and hand started tingling so badly it felt as if electricity were running through my fingers. I brushed it off, thinking it was carpal tunnel syndrome or exhaustion. As a lifelong athlete and a physical education teacher, I trusted my body to stay strong. But soon my fine motor control became challenged: I had trouble unscrewing a water bottle cap and typing on my phone. I kept thinking it was something temporary, like a pinched nerve, but I also noticed that I couldn't scrunch my toes into a sandal.

All these random things happened throughout the year, but I never thought it was really serious until a friend and I were walking down a hallway and she asked, "Is something wrong with your right arm? It's not swinging like your left one." I thought it was a strange observation, but I knew then that I had to get answers.

A LIFE-CHANGING DIAGNOSIS

My primary care doctor did several tests that turned up nothing. The next step was seeing a neurologist, who asked about my personal and family medical history and performed a few motor skills tests in her office such as asking me to tap two fingers together, push against her hand as a test of my strength, and walk up and down the hallway so she could see my gait. Almost immediately she delivered the news: "You have Parkinson's disease."

The words hit me hard. It was unfathomable to me that at 40 I had what I had thought of as an old person's disease. My grandfather and my uncle had both had Parkinson’s; I remembered them shuffling around, shaky and hunched over. But I was only 40 and an athlete! I suddenly pictured my entire life playing out much differently than I'd imagined.