Nationals senator opens up about shock health diagnosis

All too often we hear of high profile over-60s being diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.

This time around a Turnbull Government senator has revealed he has the incurable disease.

NSW Nationals senator John ‘Wacka’ Williams was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease last year.

He told the ABC that his doctor has given him the all clear to serve out his term as a senator, which ends in 2019.

Senator Williams decided to reveal his diagnosis because he was “sick” of people asking him why he wasn’t walking so well.

“So I thought, ‘Look, I’d put it out in the public arena, so then [I] can let people know, and get on with my life’,” he told the ABC.

“I had a long and lengthy chat to my wife Nancy about this a couple of nights ago and thought, ‘People are asking me what’s wrong, they’re asking my brother, they’re asking my wife, why isn’t he moving as well as he should be?'”

The 62-year-old, who was first elected to the Senate in 2007, doesn’t want people to treat him any different as a result of his diagnosis.

“Just treat me as normal, because I am basically normal except for the movements in my body,” he said.

Parkinson’s cannot be cured, but the effects can be managed with medication.

Are you sadden by this news? Has you or someone you know recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease?