(1) Parkinsons Disease & I

Introduction and context

I have been in South African higher education all my working life. During the latter years, since 2002, I provided teaching and learning support for academic staff till 2017, when I retired. My research has been on language issues as well as how to develop strategies in writers for whom English is another language.

I am also a practitioner researcher. This means that I attempt to solve a problem first by analysing the issue, then to draw on personal experience to provide a familiar context in order to consider possible solutions. Only after developing a solution will I delve into the possibility of underlying theories and broader schools of thought.    

In my career I enjoyed facilitating workshops, often requested to assist outside the social sciences, for instance, in science and engineering. However, since I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease (PD) in 2013, standing in front of any group of people - either academics or family and friends - has generated much discomfort that generally results in visible tremors. 

Being parkinsed (I hope you approve of my new descriptor) is like having my body under siege. My nervous system, muscles and accompanying organs all appear to have been hi-jacked and then used to hitch-hike, undetected, through me. The intruder is shrewd, as its goal appears to be to create doubt when I execute simple actions. This doubt leads to a breakdown in my confidence. Rather than give in, I decided first to analyse this siege and then attempt to deconstruct the war plan.

My response

I have come to the conclusion that being parkinsed is a mind game between the intruder-cum-hi-jacker and I! Should I fight back or roll over and play dead? That is why I have chosen Hamlet's opening lines of the fourth soliloquy in Shakespeare's Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1) in my blog title.

"To be, or not to be: that is the question. 

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to is suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?"

I am attempting 'to take arms against [PD]' and 'by opposing' to stem the intrusion without PD drugs. Yes, I have not been on any drugs since my diagnosis in 2013. The mind games are exhausting and unpredictable and little appears to be known by pharmaceutical companies about, specifically, how to 'take arms'.

In forthcoming blog posts, dear reader, I will be sharing PD tips and tricks I have discovered. I will describe my attempt to counteract muscle memory, one of the greatest challenges to one who's been parkinsed. I will also provide food for thought regarding a recent international PD trial (2018) using GDNF and a movie about movement disorders called Awakenings (1990).