Travel and laughter are in my DNA. As a military brat, I moved with my parents and four older siblings from Florida to South Korea to Washington, DC, and back to Florida before I was 7. I was a straight-A student as well as the class clown. My teachers didn't mind. In fact, they would laugh when I spoke Korean with a Southern drawl.
I got married in my mid-twenties to Sal, a man who shared my passion for travel and laughter. We bought an RV and spent weekends and vacations traveling the country. Sal retired early, and our next vacation lasted 16 years. We traveled from coast to coast, doing comedy shows in RV parks. Sal told jokes, and I did a Minnie Pearl routine and impersonations of Dolly Parton and Madonna, complete with outrageous homemade costumes.
Subtle Symptoms
In my late thirties, my traveling days were curtailed when I began noticing odd problems on my right side—cramping in my right shoulder, trouble using a computer mouse, shaking when holding a microphone while performing, and small handwriting. I could no longer dress myself or drive.
At the age of 47, I was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. The medication my neurologist prescribed helped free my body again, if only temporarily. I was able to resume performing and singing and driving.
Spreading Humor
A few years later, after we sold the RV and moved into a house, I discovered Parkinson's chat rooms and a whole new audience for my stories, now mostly about my disease. I also began writing song parodies and creating music videos and posting them on YouTube, including one called "Laughing at Parkinson's."
Then one of the people in the chat room suggested I share my stories online. That's when I started a blog called Parkinson's Humor. Later, they encouraged me to put my stories in a book, which I eventually self-published as Parkinson's Humor: Funny Stories About My Life with Parkinson's Disease (available on Amazon).
Surgery Needed
By my 52nd birthday, the dyskinesia—a side effect of the Parkinson's medication—was becoming unbearable. I also had tremors, rigidity, and slow movement on both sides of my body and was constantly fatigued. I had to stop driving again. That's when my doctor recommended deep brain stimulation surgery.
I was awake during the procedure and had everyone in the operating room laughing. Since the surgery, most of my motor symptoms are controlled, and I take fewer medications.
Now I run a local support group in Yuma, AZ, for about 33 people. I also am active on social media and speak each year at Parkinson's conferences and at the University of Arizona Medical School.
Sal and I are thinking about getting a small RV and doing some traveling again. No matter what life throws at us, we're both laughing at Parkinson's. It's good medicine.
—As told to Paul Wynn