Terry Crews’ wife, Rebecca King-Crews, has revealed she’s been secretly battling Parkinson’s disease since 2015.
The couple made an appearance on the Today show Monday to discuss King-Crews’ diagnosis and share details about a newly approved non-invasive surgical procedure she recently underwent to help manage the symptoms of the disease, a disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects a person’s motor functions.
King-Crews, 60, shared that she’s been living with Parkinson’s disease for the last 10 years. Her first symptoms appeared around 2012 which started with a numbness in her left foot while working out.
She also said she went to put on lip gloss one morning and realized her hand was shaking. She said she knew it was a tremor “because my grandmother had tremors.”
The fashion designer said her doctor thought she was “having anxiety” and a neurologist “wasn’t sure what was going on.”
“No disrespect to him, but I asked for referrals and I got them,” she told Craig Melvin on Today. “It took three years to diagnose me.”
While she was getting diagnosed, King-Crews said she was still working on a book, an album and a clothing line.
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“Just keep going. And that’s what I’m going to keep doing,” she said. “I believe that you don’t lay down and die because you got a diagnosis.”
After the three years of symptoms, King-Crews received a formal diagnosis in 2015 for Parkinson’s, which causes gradual damage to parts of a person’s brain resulting in numerous symptoms such as tremors, slow movement and stiff and inflexible muscles. There is no cure.
King-Crews said she is feeling “good” after undergoing the non-invasive treatment, called a bilateral focused ultrasound, and that it has helped relieve some of her symptoms.
During the procedure, ultrasound waves are delivered to specific areas on both sides of the brain and guided by magnetic resonance imagine (MRI) to target areas thought to be involved in the movement symptoms in Parkinson’s, according to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.
“I feel good. I’m able to write my name and my dates, and I’m able to write with my right hand for the first time in probably three years,” King-Crews said following her recent procedure.
“I can do a port de bras on my right leg, balancing on that leg,” she said, refering the ballet move. “So I’m seeing improvement in my symptoms. I’m still in recovery. They say it’s about three months of recovery. As you recover, you see more improvement.”
King-Crews plans to undergo a second procedure in September to address symptoms such as numbness and tremors on the left side of her body.
“I’m still figuring it out, to be honest, because part of the procedure is to improve symptoms,” King-Crews said of her current health conditions. “So, you’re improved on one side and not on the other, so it can make you feel a little more aware of the other.”
King-Crews said that she chose to share her experience now to help spread awareness after choosing to keep her diagnosis private for 10 years.
“I don’t believe in telling my story just so you can know my story and feel sorry for me,” she said. “I really believe that this procedure and others like it are the new frontier of medicine.”
“I’m excited about the possibility. I felt that I wanted to potentially make it more available to others because it’s an expensive surgery — it’s not covered yet — to just give hope to people with Parkinson’s, because I believe that we’re going to find a cure.”
King-Crews’ husband said he hopes the new treatment could be “the beginning of a cure.”
“To watch her go through what she’s gone through over the last 10 to 12 years has been very, very hard,” he said. “The tremors, the not sleeping, the loss of balance. To watch her write her name for the first time in three years, I don’t know what to say. I’m choked up just thinking about it.”
Crews said he knew his wife “was a superhero” when “she already went through cancer and defeated it.”
“When it’s in sickness and health, this is the battle that we were designed to fight together. We build each other up like that for almost 37 years, and all the way to forever,” he added.
More than 120,000 people in Canada live with Parkinson’s, according to Parkinson Canada.
While there is currently no cure for Parkinson’s, medications can help manage symptoms and therapies such as physiotherapy, speech therapy and exercise can play a vital role in improving quality of life, according to the organization.
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