Back to The Defiant Few ←INSIDE MY HEAD · WEDNESDAY · DF003
When Your Life Becomes Evidence
I spent years turning Parkinson’s into testimony, speeches, jokes, and stories—but sometimes I wonder what happens to a life when you become too damn good at explaining it.
In 2000, I testified before the United States Senate Appropriations Committee about living with Young-Onset Parkinson’s disease.
I was a young attorney who had been diagnosed during law school. I had already learned that Parkinson’s could walk into a courtroom with me whether it had been invited or not. Suddenly, I was sitting before members of Congress, trying to translate something enormous, personal, and neurologically complicated into a few minutes of understandable testimony.