Putting Parkinson’s Disease in Check Hentschel is 78 years old. And she’s been living with Parkinson’s Disease for 17 years. “The diagnosis was devastating. I went home after the diagnosis, and I collapsed, I cried,” she said. “This is not what I want my life to be like. I don’t want to be trapped in a body that slowly stops working.” But Hentschel hasn’t let it slow her down. She only just stepped down as vice president of the organization in January of 2020, and then found herself working even more, volunteering in her off hours. “I decided that Parkinson’s was going to be an asterisk in my life, not a turning point,” she said.