Dr. Strange Me – or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace F*cking Parkinson’s Disease
There’s a version of this story some people think you’re supposed to tell. It’s the one where you find the silver lining. Where you talk about resilience. Where you say things like, “We’re managing.” I’ve told that version. I’ve lived inside it. But today I’m not interested in that story. Today I’m angry. And I have the right to be. Shout out to Michael J. Fox and Harrison Ford for lighting the fuse with permission to use two words as a rally cry: “Fuck Parkinson’s.” A few years after my dad…
Originally Published on https://www.yesandexercise.org/
Dr. Robert Cochrane is a graduate of UNLV's Integrated Health Sciences department. He's researching the effect of improvisation and storytelling on Parkinson’s disease. He received grants from the Parkinson's Foundation and support from the Davis Phinney Foundation along the way. He is a popular, unique and high energy Keynote speaker, bringing joy, optimism and practical tools for people in the PD community to thrive today.
He has a background in filmmaking, with the Artisan Entertainment release, The Playaz Court, and two Stephen King-based short films among his credits. His father, Dan, was diagnosed with PD in 2001, which shifted Robert’s artistic lens to health. He made his first documentary, the award-winning Boys of Summer in 2004. There are two follow up films in the series with the fourth film coming in 2023.
He moved his family back to Walnut Creek, CA, where he grew up. He lives there with his beautiful wife, two teenagers who are, indeed, "all that" and is a proud care partner for his amazing parents.
