I distinctly remember the day I realized my father had something wrong with him.
It was 1992, and my husband and I had recently moved to California. My parents came for their first visit to see us from their home in Cape Cod.
One day on our way to lunch, my mother and I were walking behind my husband and my father, who were chatting about golf.
I noticed my father was holding his right hand in a fist and that he seemed, ever so slightly, to be walking with a different gait. I asked my mother if she had noticed this and she said yes.
We mentioned it to my father, who agreed to see a doctor upon his return home.
He did, and although his general physician did not make a formal diagnosis at the time, he suggested a number of things my father’s symptoms could mean. He recommended my father make an appointment with a neurologist.
My father told me later that as he and my mother entered the neurologist’s office the following week, the neurologist immediately said to my him, “I am pretty sure you have Parkinson’s disease.”
It was quite a shock for them to hear and, of course, it was a life-changing diagnosis.