The Parkinson's Gremlins

I woke up one morning with a strange feeling. At least strange for someone with Parkinson’s. Nothing was stiff. I easily rolled out of bed. I didn’t feel like I was going to fall over. I walked, not shuffled to the bathroom.

The Parkinson’s "gremlins" the ones that cause stiffness, lack of balance, and never make it easy to get out of bed, must have left.

They were hiding

I was feeling pretty good as I made coffee. But apparently the gremlins were hiding behind the coffee pot. I went to take the cup from under the spout and the gremlins loosened my finger and the cup, full of hot coffee splashed on to the counter, the floor, and just missed my Yorkie.

Husband was still asleep which meant I’d have to mop up the floor. Forgetting for a minute about the gremlins, I bent over to clean the mess, lost my balance, and just missed hitting the floor and possibly squashing my poor Yorkie.

Winning again

I was wondering whether I should even attempt making my breakfast. I’d been making the same breakfast for a few weeks so I thought there should be enough "muscle memory" to accomplish the task. I should have remembered that the gremlins play tricks on muscles.

As I poured the egg whites into the hot pan, my arm jerked, bumped the pan, and egg whites splashed on to the electric burners. Thank God my husband heard me swearing. He came in and asked: "Gremlins again?" and finished cooking my breakfast.

Usually, my meds scare the gremlins away. They also make me sleepy sometimes. But I was determined to do some work on a current writing project. This, of course, required typing. After having fingers cramping and stiffening and typo after typo, the gremlins again won.

Drawing a blank

We were meeting a friend of mine and her husband for dinner. My husband had never met my friends husband before. There were a couple of stairs to manage as we went to our table. I made it, Maybe the gremlins were sleeping. No, they had just moved to my head.

As the couple reached our table, I turned to my husband and said, "This is Joan and her husband ..." a total blank. I turned red as her husband filled in the blank: "I’m Matt." I muttered "gremlins" to my husband.

All I could do is laugh

I looked at the table. So many items that the gremlins would enjoy: water glasses, bread dishes, butter trays - all just out of my reach

My husband could see my hesitance and offered to hand the items to me. All was well until my arm jerked as I grabbed my glass of water and it ended up in my salad.

All I could do is laugh as I mopped up the lettuce. I told them about my gremlins and encouraged them to laugh with me. They wished me many gremlin-less days ahead. I can only hope.