Riverside resident PJ Duling, 69, said she first suspected she had developed Parkinson’s disease after noticing a consistent tremor in her hands.
“I had been noticing for about a year that at night, my hands would be shaking. If I was taking a drink of something or brushing my teeth, my head would shake in the evening, too. I started to wonder about that, and then it seemed to get worse,” Duling told the Landmark. “I went to visit some of my siblings, and my one sibling said, ‘You better have that checked out,’ so I asked the doctor for that scan, and it showed, at that point, I had mild Parkinson’s.”
Duling received her diagnosis in August of 2024, making her the fourth of five siblings to learn she had the neurodegenerative disease.
“It was one of those, ‘Yeah, I thought this might be it,’ moments. It wasn’t a big shock,” she said. “I was kind of prepped to have it after two of my three brothers and my sister have it, so I wasn’t really shocked, I should say, just bummed out.”
Dr. Sachin Kapur, a physician at Northwestern Medicine specializing in movement disorders and neurology, said Parkinson’s tends to affect people older than 60, though people of all ages have developed it.
“For the most part, we don’t know why, but patients are losing these dopamine cells that are deep in the brain, and that ends up causing symptoms of slowness of movement, stiffness in the limbs. It may or may not cause shaking of the hands or part of the body at rest,” he said.
In the year since being diagnosed, Duling said her life hasn’t changed in major ways, but there are more minor symptoms in her day-to-day that add up.
“I get fatigued a little more easily. I have something called tremor-dominant Parkinson’s, so my hands usually are shaking, and I’m shakier than any of my other siblings, but they don’t have the kind I have,” she said. “A lot of cramping in my calves and trouble falling asleep at night. Small things that are annoyances.”
She’s also taken up new kinds of exercise, like rock-steady boxing, which is designed for people with Parkinson’s, and low-impact aerobics.
Kapur says exercising regularly is important for patients with Parkinson’s to manage their symptoms.
“This is a progressive, degenerative disease. Over time, it’s going to slowly progress, no matter what. All of the meds and all the trials we’ve done, so far, we have not found any sort of medication that actually slows down that process,” he said. “Exercise is something that does slow down the process. Right now, it’s the only treatment we have that we know slows down the progressive process of the disease. It is super helpful, and I’ve seen it with my own patients where, not only is it stabilizing the disease, but I’ve seen patients where their symptoms of slowness, stiffness actually improve with exercise. It helps in so many different ways.”
Last weekend, Duling and her family — including her husband, their three children with their spouses, and seven grandchildren — participated in Moving Day Chicago, an annual fundraising walk in the city operated by the nonprofit Parkinson’s Foundation.
The agency aims to improve the quality of life of patients with Parkinson’s while educating others and investing in research.
Moving Day takes place in a growing number of cities each year; last year, there were more than 52 editions across the country.
“It is meant to be a celebration of the Parkinson’s community. We’re celebrating people with PD as well as their care partners and families,” said Kerrie McKeough, the advancement director of the foundation’s Midwest chapter. “We will have three different exercise demos that are Parkinson’s-specific. Not everybody likes the same kind of exercise, so we like to expose people to different exercises.”
She said the main event is a two-mile walk, with a quarter-mile route available for people who cannot or do not want to walk the full length. She said the Parkinson’s Foundation’s mission of uplifting patients with the disease is important so people who receive a diagnosis know that life goes on.
“We always say, ‘People don’t die of Parkinson’s disease. They die with Parkinson’s disease.’ Another thing we say, and this is true: ‘If you’ve met one person with Parkinson’s, you’ve met one person with Parkinson’s,’ because not everyone has the same presentation of their symptoms. Not everyone is in the same stage,” she said. “It’s important for people to come together and see that. If someone’s newly diagnosed, [it is important] to see that there are plenty of people there who have had Parkinson’s disease for X number of years, and they’re fully living their life.”
Duling said she feels “honored” to be able to raise money for Parkinson’s research.
For anyone who suspects they may have Parkinson’s disease, Duling said she has one piece of advice.
“If you have any doubt, get it checked out,” she said. “The sooner you know and the more you know, the more you can fight it.”
