LAWRENCE SMITH/Fairfax
Christine Anderson no longer feels Parkinson's tremors due to successful deep brain stimulation surgery.
As he watched her stir her cup of tea, Neville Anderson knew his love of 51 years was back.
The Titirangi man had watched helplessly as the life of his once-active, social high school sweetheart ebbed away to Parkinson's disease.
Diagnosed 11 years ago, Christine relied on three pills, three hours daily to ease the chronic trembling. But while replenishing the depleted dopamine in her brain, the chemical messenger responsible for movement, there was little for the involuntary jerks or dyskinesia that her body would often make as it reacted to the drugs.
At times she could not talk or sit. Sometimes she could barely move, she said.
"It's like your body's possessed by a demon."
