Our Founder's Story

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Before turning 4, my life changed forever. My mom was in a car accident that left her paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair.

For 18 years, I watched her navigate unimaginable pain. Every day, I prayed that God would take her pain away, and if He wouldn’t, that He would give it to me instead. What made it harder was the guilt. I was in the car that day. I had pulled the gear selector out of curiosity, not knowing it was faulty. For years, I carried the belief that I was responsible for what happened.

But through that pain, something powerful was born in me: empathy. 

Not the kind that shows up in hospital mission statements or marketing campaigns, but real, lived empathy. The kind that makes me tear up when I hear someone’s story and feel their pain as if it were my own. That empathy has guided me my entire life.

When my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2019, it reopened old wounds and brought new ones. The emotional weight, the constant worry, the feeling that no matter how much I did, it was never enough... I found myself headed toward burnout. 

I looked for help. Apps. Support groups. Anything. But nothing was built FOR caregivers. Everything was built for patients, with caregivers as an  afterthought. So I decided to build what I needed. A few weeks later, life gave me an unexpected gift: time.  After losing my job, I finally had the space to build Parknson for real.

One weekend, holed up in a small California Airbnb, I started sketching out an idea that would become Parknson™, a platform designed to care for the caregiver while they care for someone else. 

With empathy for your journey,

Tim Otis
Founder & CEO, Parknson™