a tough pill to swallow

Just some of the medication I take everyday- June 2025

I always considered myself one of those lucky people who simply didn’t need to think much about her health. Coasting through my twenties and early thirties with energy, independence, and a deep sense of physical trust in my body elicited confidence and levity.

But that trust began to fray when, at 35, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease—a progressive neurological disorder I knew nothing about before it took up residence in my life. In fact, I didn’t even tell most people for almost eight years. That’s how long it took me to begin to swallow the truth myself.

Up until that moment, I had lived a life relatively untouched by illness. I never took medication—not even for a headache. I rarely saw a doctor, had never broken a bone, and thought of health as something that just quietly accompanied me as I chased career goals, traveled the world, and climbed literal mountains. I saw myself as strong, independent, and low-maintenance. So when a neurologist sat me down and said the words “Parkinson’s disease,” I felt like the floor had dropped out from beneath me. I didn’t understand how someone like me—young, active, capable—could have something so permanent and degenerative. 

For a long time, I couldn’t speak the words out loud. Yes, I was definitely in a bit of denial, but even if rationally I knew what was going on, I couldn’t make it real by giving it a voice. I continued working, traveling, and showing up as if nothing had changed, even though inside everything had. I became a master of concealment—hiding symptoms, deflecting questions, blaming stress, sleep, or the weather for my ever so slight tremor, strange movements, and trouble finding words that used to come so naturally. I told only a few people, and even then, I softened the truth. I wasn’t ready to be seen as sick. I wasn’t ready to admit that something invisible was slowly, irreversibly shifting the course of my life. I wasn’t ready for pity, for awkward silences, for people’s projections of what they thought Parkinson’s was. It was easier—less painful, anyway—to say nothing at all.

In the years that followed, the diagnosis became something I continued to carry in silence, even as the rest of my life became increasingly shaped by it. Doctors—once an afterthought—became a regular part of my world. I’m now on a first-name basis with several neurologists and even the pharmacist who fills my endless prescriptions sees me more often than most of my friends. My calendar is a blur of appointments, medication alarms, and refill reminders. The medications have multiplied, turning my once drug-free life into a choreographed routine of pills every few hours. The phrase “a tough pill to swallow” used to be just a metaphor. Now it’s not only literal—it defines the rhythm of my days.

My mornings start with a handful of pills—dopaminergic medications to make up for the shortfall in my brain, others to manage the side effects, and still others to address the collateral damage of it all. I’ve learned more about my brain chemistry in the last few years than I ever cared to. But the hardest pill has never been Carbidopa or Levodopa or Mirapex, or Amantadine or any of the other pills I now have to take to function in this world. It is the slow, bitter pill of acceptance. Accepting that I am no longer the person I think I am and certainly than I was. Accepting that this is not temporary. Accepting that I can’t keep hiding forever.

Telling people, when I finally did, didn’t make the disease easier and I didn't really feel any better. In fact, I often felt worse, knowing that people knew. The few people I had told early on thought that when I came out in public about it, it would be some sort of relief-- a weight lifted off my shoulders. However, to be honest, it was not. I hated that people knew. I still hate that people know and I actually feel more alone than ever.

But, in trying to find some sort of positive in all of this, perhaps it created space for honesty and connection I didn’t know I needed. I still struggle with the loss, the loneliness, the fear, and the daily reminders of what I can’t control. But I’m also learning that strength doesn’t come from pretending everything is fine. Sometimes, strength looks like speaking the hardest truths out loud.  

Coming to terms with Parkinson’s has been a long, winding road, and I’m still on it. The pills I take every few hours keep my body moving, but it’s the diagnosis itself that has been the hardest medicine to digest. Accepting this new version of my life—this future I never planned for—is, and I know always will be, a tough pill to swallow.