John Cwik was walking through the Bellagio with his wife and daughter in January 2014 when he suddenly sensed that strangers were lining the walls around him, cameras were flashing and the world was in on a secret plot to do him harm.
His eyes identified the casino’s activity for what it was: card players at game tables and shoppers gazing in boutique windows. His brain told him to run.
So Cwik handed to his wife and daughter the tickets he bought to Cirque du Soleil’s “O” in celebration of their birthdays and walked the 6 miles back to their Las Vegas home.
Cwik, 54, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2004, 14 years after his brother Richard also was diagnosed with the illness, which is caused by a dopamine deficiency in the brain. Cwik has struggled with symptoms for nearly 15 years — tremors and slowed or stiff muscles — while combating the hallucinations, delusions and paranoia that can accompany Parkinson’s or its medications.
“To this day, I still can’t get over how my eyes can be seeing what’s actually happening but my brain is telling me it’s something else,” Cwik said.
In the beginning, he thought he threw his back out.
Cwik had severe cramps in his hamstrings, calves and lower back while visiting family with his former wife in Wisconsin. He could barely stand because of the pain, and he began taking Advil “like candy.”
After being referred to a neurologist by his doctor, Cwik suspected his condition might be the early stages of the disease that was slowly taking his brother’s life. His suspicions were confirmed, but he kept the news to himself.
Richard died in the advanced stages of Parkinson’s in 2013 at 53.
“He was a Division I cross-country runner in college, but by the end, when he passed, he almost looked like a concentration camp survivor,” Cwik said. “He just wasted away.”
https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/henderson/former-teacher-copes-with-parkinsons-disease-that-killed-his-brother/
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