Inside Parkinson's

I have done a lot of musical performances in my lifetime, most of them when I was younger.  Sometimes I was good and sometimes I was bad.  I played the mellophone in the marching band and totally loved it!   One particular Friday night we were marching the halftime show at the football game. We had memorized two shows.  One for the football game and one for the competition that weekend.  During one of the half-time shows, I kept turning the wrong way.  I was doing the wrong show. I could not stop marching to the competition showpiece.   We were marching the halftime show.  They were totally different!  OH BOY!  The director was not very happy with me that night. 

Parkinson’s can be a lot like marching band.  Every week there is a halftime show (show A) and a competition show (show B).  You have practiced both shows and your body memory will tell you the right one to march.  However, the body memory misfires and you are marching to the other show.  You know that you are supposed to be marching to show A not show B.  But, again, the body memory is marching to show B.  Doesn’t that feel like Parkinson’s?

Our mind tells us that the body should work one way.  However, the body has decided to behave differently. Sometimes, it changes every week!  The symptoms for the week keep us marching to a different drummer.  We can try to fight with the body and keep attempting to march to show A.  We can also accept that the body will be marching to show B for that day or that week. I’ll tell you that isn’t easy.  You want so much to be marching to the same show that everyone else is marching.  You do not want to march to show B alone.  The band is marching to show A.  You tell your body, “hey body, we are marching to show A”.  The body says, “sorry, Cheryl, we are marching to show B today”.  

What do you do?  The answer to that varies.  There isn’t a magic pill that will allow us to march to show A.  Some days are easier to accept that you are marching to show B.  Other days you are fighting and turning back every chance you get.  I don’t have a good answer to this problem. I just keep marching. I try to take each day in stride and remember that I can march to either show.  That’s Parkinson’s. You never know which show will be playing and how the musician inside will be performing. It may help to realize that there are two shows. Maybe, that will make accepting show B a little easier when your body decides to march that show.