John had been experiencing tremors since the third grade, but his doctors didn’t take it too seriously. In fact, they attributed his shaking to being underweight. So when he started college, he began hitting the gym, lifting weights to try to gain muscle mass. But the shaking didn’t go away.
It was right after his 21st birthday that John was finally diagnosed with essential tremor (ET). When he received his ET diagnosis (a condition he had researched many times), he was relieved to know he didn’t have Parkinson’s disease.
“I felt a weight was off my shoulders that I had an answer,” he recalled. “I decided in that very moment I wasn’t going to let it impact me. I had been given my very own superpower.”
John is studying nursing at Penn State University. He is a branch representative for the Penn State University Men in Nursing Club. He is vice-president of The DREAMers Club (Disability Rights, Education Advocacy and Mentoring), whose purpose is to raise awareness and lower stigma surrounding disabilities.
John says having ET hasn’t changed him. But it has opened his eyes to the world of disability, showing him a new way to care for his brother who has autism, and the patients in his field.