By Mallory Mattingly
Rebecca Crews and her husband Terry Crews just announced that she’s been battling Parkinson’s for over a decade.
“The only reason I’m going public is because I finally have some uplifting information to offer,” she told PEOPLE. According to EW, she received the diagnosis in 2015, though doctors initially said it was anxiety.
A new procedure has helped her manage her symptoms, she told the TODAY SHOW.
“I feel good,” Rebecca said. “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.”
Related: Rebecca Crews Shares How God Restored Her Relationship with Terry Crews
Terry was the one who originally found the treatment for Rebecca. He had just read an article from The Michael J. Fox Foundation about “Focused Ultrasound.”
“I’d been reading about this and researching it for ten years,” Terry remembered. “I told her, ‘Honey, I really think this will help you.’”
Focused Ultrasound Surgery includes “no general anesthesia, surgical incisions or implanted hardware is involved. While the patient is sedated yet awake, doctors use MRI brain scans to direct ultrasound beams to clumps of brain cells, called neurons, that cause symptoms. The area of the brain targeted for treatment varies based on what symptoms are being addressed and whether the procedure is one- or both-sided. The bilateral procedure is carried out one side at a time, with at least six months between treatments,” the foundation’s page reads.
Terry said it’s been hard to watch his wife suffer through the disease.
“It hurts,” the former NFL player admitted. “It’s definitely been hard to watch her on those days when I see her so worn out by this. We’re going through this together.”
Rebecca told the TODAY SHOW that she could have gotten discouraged but decided to tell herself, “Just keep walking.”
“Just keep going. And that’s what I’m going to keep doing,” she shared. “I believe that you don’t lie down and die because you got a diagnosis.”
Rebecca is still trying to manage life outside of recovery, but she’s still figuring it all out.
“Part of the procedure is improved symptoms, so you’re improved on one side (but) not on the other,” she told the TODAY Show. “However, each day that I do things, I’m aware of the benefit that’s already been to me on the one side of my body. So I’m looking forward to doing the left side.”
Despite the challenges of a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, Rebecca is choosing perseverance over discouragement, leaning on the support of her husband as she continues her recovery journey.
Read Next: Rebecca Crews on 35-Year Marriage to Terry Crews: ‘I Followed Jesus’
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