I sing in an acapella choir and there are some songs where we have a tendency to speed up. If that happens we either all stay together and all speed up, or we stop listening to each other and sing at different timings which just doesn’t work!
I’m learning that rushing ahead doesn’t always achieve what you want it to.
I was trying to book something online a while ago, and I wanted to do it quickly before going to work because it said there were a limited amount of tickets at that price. But I accidentally typed my password incorrectly and, in my rush, I got it wrong again and had to reset my password. I could feel a tiny bit of panic, and of course that set my tremor off and that made me type it wrong again and again … and again. One of the many things I’ve learned after living with Parkinson’s for over four years, is that doing anything that requires precision when your hand is shaking like crazy is pretty much impossible. In the end, I was running out of time to get ready for work, so I decided to leave it until after work. And as it turned out there were still tickets left.
Life generally seems to be fast-paced, and we often rush to keep up, but sometimes we are forced to slow down by circumstances or waiting for other people or in my case – a lack of dopamine in my brain which makes some of my movements slower. As I’m naturally a fast person, I find this frustrating. However, I’m (slowly) learning that sometimes just slowing down can help us to focus, to put things into perspective and get things right.
There is one thing I definitely want to slow down and that’s the progression of my Parkinson’s Disease.
Parkinson’s is a degenerative neurological condition which affects 1 in 500 people and symptoms and treatments are wide and varied. There are currently no treatments which stop or slow down the progression of Parkinson’s.
But there are lots of ways we can all do our bit to help speed up progress for better treatments – and hopefully one day a cure – such as raising awareness or supporting charities such as Parkinson’s UK.
#UniteForParkinsons
World Parkinson’s Day is on 11 April 2018.
Living with Parkinson's 