It Takes a Village
Walter Siegenthaler
Walter provides long-distance support to his daughter, Erika.
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My wife Lydia had Parkinson’ s. She passed away in 2006 after living 22 years with the illness. My daughter Erika was diagnosed in 2019, two months into her husband’ s yearlong deployment overseas.
I live in North Carolina, and Erika lives in Florida with her family. I’ ve made several trips to Florida to support her, especially after her deep brain stimulation surgery in 2022.
Erika also gets additional support from her sister, who has a PhD in biology. Her degree helps; she understands the details of Parkinson’ s a lot better than I do.
At home, Erika’ s daughters are supportive, too. They’ re 16 and 12, and they understand what’ s going on and do a really great job helping. The roles between Erika and her husband have somewhat flip-flopped. Her husband has taken over cooking duties and become an amazing cook. Erika is mindful of making sure her husband has the time he needs to care for himself. She always makes sure he has time to work out and time to play— surfing or going on trips with friends. It’ s important to be the care partner to the care partner, letting them take care of themselves. She needs him to be healthy because he’ s the one who’ s going to take care of her in the future.
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