Ana Navarro Opens Up About Husband’s 'Overwhelming' Parkinson's Diagnosis

The View: Behind the Table

In this episode of The View: Behind the Table, Ana Navarro joins Brian Teta for a deeply personal discussion regarding her husband Al's Parkinson's

Key takeaways

• Ana Navarro describes the 'gut punch' of her husband Al's Parkinson's diagnosis and the challenges of managing the disease's uncertainty.
• The discussion highlights the importance of accessible healthcare and medical research, specifically noting concerns regarding RFK Jr. and administration policies.

Main topics

• Al Navarro's Parkinson's diagnosis
• Democratic presidential prospects

Notable quotes

It is such a gut punch. It just knocks you to your knees.

Conclusion

The episode provides a balanced mix of heavy personal struggle, high-s

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) Early morning on a Manhattan sidewalk, a shooting caught on surveillance video. Speaker 5 (0:05) It was an assassination-style killing, and everybody saw it. Speaker 4 (0:10) A new podcast series from ABC Audio in 2020 goes inside this captivating case. I'm ABC News legal analyst Brian Buckmeyer. Listen to Burden of Proof, Luigi Mangione, wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 6 (0:27) All right, it is Monday, September 21st. I am here with Cha-Cha. The Cha-Cha Cam is live. I am here with Anna Navarro. You know Speaker 3 (0:35) what happened last night? So I get to the hotel. Yeah. I get out of the car and there are four poodles outside the hotel and in the hotel lobby. It was like a poodle convention. And I have to tell you... Speaker 6 (0:47) Were they there for Cha-Cha or were they just... Speaker 3 (0:49) They were actually staying at the same hotel. And they were not the same person. In other words, there's not one person with four poodles. Speaker 6 (0:55) There's four Speaker 3 (0:55) people there with poodles. Different people with different poodles. And they all look like Chacha and they were all Chacha's coloring. And I just, like, I turned to, you know, Courtney, who drives me in New York, and I said, Courtney, have I died and gone to heaven? Because this is my idea of heaven. Poodlepalooza is heaven? Oh, Speaker 6 (1:13) God, Speaker 3 (1:13) yes, yes, yes. I want to be. When I die, assuming that I make it to heaven, which is an if, I want to be surrounded by poodles. I always Speaker 6 (1:22) figured when you go, it'll be like when the Egyptian pharaohs went and we just send Chacha with you, alive and well. Speaker 3 (1:29) You're horrible. You're horrible. Chacha, do not listen to him, mama. Speaker 6 (1:46) We're going to start with something personal and something serious. Last week, you opened up on your podcast about your husband, Al's Parkinson's diagnosis and his continued fight with it. If you have not listened to it, check out Bleep of Anna Navarro because it's a wonderful conversation. Speaker 3 (2:02) Oh, my God. It took it took Parkinson's for you to give me a plug. Well, I Speaker 6 (2:06) really like Al. I got to be honest. It was the first time you spoke publicly about Speaker 3 (2:09) it. Speaker 6 (2:09) He's Speaker 3 (2:09) not happy with you. Why? Speaker 6 (2:10) What did I do? Because I told him the Miami Dolphins are never going to win? Speaker 3 (2:13) No, he's not happy with you because you take part in fantasy football, which he finds to be an aberration. I Speaker 6 (2:20) understand. It's a different generation. My father never liked it either. He thought it was stupid. Yeah, he thinks Speaker 3 (2:25) it's stupid and disloyal. Speaker 6 (2:27) Yeah. Older generations do not like fantasy football. I bet he hates the Red Zone channel, too. I bet he hates the channel that shows all the games at the same time and everybody's scoring. I have Speaker 3 (2:36) no idea what that is. He's an Speaker 6 (2:37) old school fan, and I respect it. But you got to move on with the times. That's what I'd say to Al. That being said, let's talk about what Al's going through because it's a real fight. And I know a little bit about Parkinson's, but not nearly as much as someone who's been in the middle of this. So first of all, tell us why you decided to talk about this. Speaker 3 (2:57) So we were out of the country. We were on vacation. And Carly Simon came out with a statement. talking about her Parkinson's. And it was a beautifully written statement. Anybody going through Parkinson's, any family going through that, I encourage them to look up what Carly Simon said in her statement. And she talked about not being defined by the disease. She talked about the challenges, how she was still living her life, working, being productive. And it just made us have a conversation about The duty and responsibility of using the platform to destigmatize the disease. And some people have pushed back on me and said there is no stigma associated with Parkinson's. Michael J. Fox has been talking about it for decades. Look, I'm not comparing myself to Michael J. Fox. I'm not comparing Al to Michael J. Fox. But the idea that there's no stigma is simply false because... When you say to anybody that you have Parkinson's or that your husband has Parkinson's, the first words out of people's mouths is, I am sorry. And people do get treated differently because they think that you can't do certain things, that you can't participate, you stop getting invited, that you're somehow on the way out. Also, there's so much more to the disease than I thought, that I knew. For me, it was just disease where you shook. And there's a bunch of other things that come along with it. You know, mental health challenges, depression, issues with, you know, swallowing with your throat, with your voice, energy level. His doctor, and we have the best team of doctors that I can think of, led by Dr. Diego Torres out of Baptist in Miami. And his doctor said to me the first day we came in, which was very overwhelming. Just, you know, when you get the diagnosis, you have Parkinson's. It is, I mean, it is such a gut punch. It just knocks you to your knees. I Speaker 6 (5:08) can't imagine. Speaker 3 (5:08) Because you immediately start thinking about, you know, what is this going to mean? Is our lives over? Is he going to get dementia? Is he not going to be able to travel anymore? Is he not going to be able to walk? Is he going to need 24-7? I mean. All of these thoughts immediately come to your head and you start, of course, like what we do now, which is researching and, you know, what percent of Parkinson's patients get dementia? What percent of Parkinson's, you know, what does dying from Parkinson's look like? All of those things is the first thing. And so it's so important to have reliable neurologists that you can go to. And not everybody does, Brian. And it's made me that much more sensitive about this need for health care, for health insurance and accessible health care, because the difference that it makes for us to be able to have the neurologists that we do. And I have friends who are connected, who have health care. who are waiting a year to see a neurologist, who've been diagnosed with Parkinson's and are waiting a year to see a neurologist. It is why I am so passionate about medical research and incensed with RFK Jr. and with this administration for shutting down so much medical research that had been going on. And so, you know, I had... I had noticed symptoms in Al. I had noticed something. I didn't know what was happening. But he was, you know, he's always been very athletic. He's always been in great shape. And all of a sudden I saw that when he was walking, his feet seemed heavy. His gait was different. And I saw that when he was FaceTiming and holding the phone, his hand would shake. He also had this almost like imperceptible. tremor of the face. But we'd been through COVID. He'd been in the hospital for COVID twice. I remember, yeah. He'd been diagnosed with prostate cancer and gone through therapy. He'd had a horrible knee injury from a fall and had surgery for that. He had about three or four major hospitalizations and surgeries within a two-year period. So part of me wondered, I wonder if it's the effect of the anesthesia. Here's the truth. I didn't want it to be Parkinson's. Because I thought it was such a devastating diagnosis. And for me, particularly difficult because I travel. Because I'm not there. I travel for work. I'm not there 24-7. I didn't know what it was going to mean in that part. So we put together the team of doctors. Speaker 3 (7:52) who are extraordinary. And the doctor said to me, look, we all have good days and we all have bad days. We all have good days. We all have off days. It's just that when you have Parkinson's, your off days are, you know, you're way off. The peaks are the peaks. The valleys are way deeper and way lower. He's doing, I'll tell you, he's... Speaker 3 (8:18) He takes a lot of medication, but he's doing great. His symptoms are almost unnoticeable. He's living a Speaker 6 (8:28) very full life right now. Speaker 3 (8:29) He's living a very full life. He's writing a book. Speaker 3 (8:34) Whoopi's the publisher. Whoopi's Publishing Company is involved with it. He's very physically active, enjoying life, rooting for the Miami Dolphins to no avail. Yeah, I'm sorry for that. All Speaker 6 (8:49) of Speaker 3 (8:49) those things. And one of the things that I've had to learn to do is not to hover and not to cross the bridges before you have to. In other words, don't live, you know, don't not. Don't not do things you want to do until you can't do things. So don't start being, what can I tell you, preemptively catastrophic and stopping yourself. Look, it's having to balance being a wife and being a caretaker. And you have been great about it. You and most of... the people here at The View have known about it from the beginning because I, you know, I told you immediately when it happened because I knew it would affect my life. And there are times when I haven't been able to be here because I'm in Miami going to a doctor's appointment. I like to go to every doctor's appointment because Al cannot. remember what he needs to ask and he cannot remember what they answer. Not because he has Parkinson's, because he's a man and he has never been able to remember. I've known this man for 25 years. Sending him to a doctor has been a useless exercise the entire time I have known him. So, you know, thank you for allowing me that. You know, and there are times when his off days have meant that I've had an off day that, you know, it's affected me. There are times when I've been stretched really thin. And and I, you know, and I realize that I have probably more resources, more infrastructure, more flexibility at work than most people do. So I can only imagine what it's like for families. you know, that are going through it. So we shared it for that reason because, you know, I also, because I want to be transparent with our