{"id":2958,"date":"2026-04-03T15:30:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/03\/you-dont-fight-parkinsons-without-raw-moments-she-shared-them\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T15:30:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:30:23","slug":"you-dont-fight-parkinsons-without-raw-moments-she-shared-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/03\/you-dont-fight-parkinsons-without-raw-moments-she-shared-them\/","title":{"rendered":"You don\u2019t fight Parkinson\u2019s without \u2018raw moments.\u2019 She shared them."},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tHealth\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\tYou don\u2019t fight Parkinson\u2019s without \u2018raw moments.\u2019 She shared them.\t<\/h1>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n

Sue Goldie.<\/p>\n

By Kent Dayton<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n
\n
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\n\t\tAnna Lamb\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHarvard Staff Writer\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/address>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\t\t

\t\t
\n\t\t\t4 min read\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n

\n\t\t\tChan School\u2019s Sue Goldie felt \u2018sheer responsibility\u2019 to let Times journalist tell her story\t\t<\/h2>\n<\/header>\n
\n

Adjusting to the reality of an incurable disease is hard, never mind talking about it. Even so, Sue Goldie, the Roger Irving Lee Professor of Public Health at Harvard\u2019s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, decided to share her journey with a stranger.<\/p>\n

In October, Goldie, who was diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s disease in 2021, was the subject of a New York Times feature by John Branch<\/a>, whom she allowed to follow her life for more than two years. This month, she spoke at the Chan School about fighting the disease<\/a> and her decision to make that fight public.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not uncomplicated,\u201d Goldie said. \u201cI think it requires a lot of mutual trust to let someone in your life to see you at those raw moments and you really don\u2019t know what they are going to write \u2026 I just felt this sheer responsibility to try to speak out loud and to try to give voice to what is so difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parkinson\u2019s disease stems from a depletion of dopamine in the brain. Motor issues include tremors, rigidity, and slowness of movement. As the disease worsens, it can cause problems with balance and gait. But the condition runs much deeper than visible symptoms and is really a multi-system disorder, Goldie noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing about Parkinson\u2019s that is absolutely true is it plays out differently in everyone,\u201d she said, pointing to wide variability in onset of symptoms and timeline.<\/p>\n

For her, some initial symptoms appeared while she was training for her first Ironman triathlon \u2014 a challenge her son had introduced her to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t put my finger on it, but I just wasn\u2019t feeling well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Working with a coach, she continued to bike, run, and swim \u2014 all while serving as the faculty director of two centers and teaching three large courses. Her coach started to notice some asymmetry on her left side, particularly with swimming.<\/p>\n

She then began to notice a left-sided tremor. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat was what brought me finally to a neurologist,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

After her diagnosis, Goldie kept training. She and her coach agreed: As the disease presented new challenges, they would figure out case-by-case solutions.<\/p>\n

They added a long straw on her bike to save herself having to lean over to reach her water bottle. As fine motor control worsened, they switched to electronic shifting, and changed her cleats to make it easier to clip out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s something about problem-solving that feels like you\u2019re moving forward,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd it leaked over into my work world as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The diagnosis had brought deep anxiety over the potential impact on her academic endeavors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really frightening to me to have cognitive effects from Parkinson\u2019s,\u201d she said. \u201cI think when you\u2019re at an academic institution, where the currency of your value is your thinking, the fear I had was about: What does this mean for my identity? What will people think?\u201d<\/p>\n

The antidote to her anxiety has been discovering new ways to do what she loves. One example: her innovative approach to designing educational multimedia. Goldie is well known for her ability to distill complex concepts using sketches, diagrams, and iconography visuals \u2014 a feature of her work at the Global Health Education and Learning Incubator (GHELI)<\/a> and her online courses at the Chan School<\/a> \u2014 but her tremor made it harder to do so in the same way.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I got an iPad, and I would draw ahead of time, and then I would cut pieces out,\u201d she said. \u201cI would move the pieces around instead of drawing.\u201d<\/p>\n

When a large group of high school teachers attending a workshop at GHELI noticed collections of visual drawings next to each lesson plan, they quickly began exploring how they could use the “visual language” in their own lessons. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it was just this example where something that was a workaround actually became this sort of pedagogical innovation,\u201d Goldie said.<\/p>\n

After the Times story was published, Goldie received hundreds of letters from patients who said they felt seen, and from people who told her that she had helped them see loved ones better. Their words left a mark. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe best way I can respect the fact that these individuals took time to write to me is to read every one and to try to listen and learn in terms of what I want to do next,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Health You don\u2019t fight Parkinson\u2019s without \u2018raw moments.\u2019 She shared them. Sue Goldie. By Kent Dayton Anna Lamb Harvard Staff Writer March 23, 2026 4 min read Chan School\u2019s Sue Goldie felt \u2018sheer responsibility\u2019 to let Times journalist tell her story Adjusting to the reality of an incurable disease is hard, never mind talking about …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"loftocean_post_primary_category":0,"loftocean_post_format_gallery":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_ids":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_urls":"","loftocean_post_format_video_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_video_url":"","loftocean_post_format_video_type":"","loftocean_post_format_video":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_type":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_url":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_audio":"","loftocean-featured-post":"","loftocean-like-count":0,"loftocean-view-count":17,"tinysalt_single_post_intro_label":"","tinysalt_single_post_intro_description":"","tinysalt_hide_post_featured_image":"","tinysalt_post_featured_media_position":"","tinysalt_single_site_header_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header_style":"sticky-scroll-up","tinysalt_single_site_footer_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_footer":"0","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-staying-healthy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanvoiceofhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}