Just A Month for Awareness?

Another April and a month of Parkinson’s Awareness Month has come and gone - and yet, it hasn’t! For those of us who are living with Parkinson’s, we don’t have the luxury to be anything but aware! I don’t say any of this in anger, sadness, or regret. My daily reality is nothing but filled with awareness. Most of us have but little choice but to constantly be aware of our relationship to Parkinson’s disease.

No need for a chosen awareness month

It is my hope that there be no need for a chosen month, day, or even an official moment to highlight Parkinson’s ever again - only because there is no more need to educate the public of the symptoms and maybe even a few of the nuisances that accompany this illness. It’s probably too much to dream for, but we’ve gone from gliders to the moon in just a lifetime. Maybe through greater awareness will come a movement towards prevention.

There is nothing wrong with hoping and praying for some positive change to come into your life. Feeding the flame of hopeful intervention is positive, just as long as that isn’t all you are doing. Relying totally on your physician and/or neurologist probably isn’t the plan to follow either.

Tips for those with Parkinson's

Here are just some of the key points of Parkinson’s to truly be aware of:

• Take full advantage of the times that your medications are functioning at capacity to achieve that which you hope to achieve.
• Be grateful for the time that you are mobile and most importantly, don’t beat yourself up for those periods when the planets don’t align. Don’t blame yourself or anyone else—it just is.
• You, like me, probably have work to do! Parkinson’s disease means that nothing is going to be automatic, anymore! If you were a multi-tasker, you may not be completely reliable if you plan to follow your pre-Parkinsonian ways.
• Only you can prevent forest fires and only you can get motivated to be your very best. Your mindset, character, and will are being challenged. Take the challenge to know yourself, your illness, and doggedly seek for that missing therapy, exercise, or activity that you find brings some relief or even just the calming of your being.

Finding your unique recipe of therapies, diets, exercises, medicines, or other tools that you may encounter along this journey may surprise and even astound you. Awareness can come in many forms.