Living

The blue light flickers in the living room, projecting pictures of real-time news events one evening. I know that it’s my dad who’s sitting in the chair in the darkness...

At last, after holding her breath with worry for half a year, Posy was on her way to Florida to visit her lovely, but very poorly daughter. Posy and her...

When I taught English, one of the greatest challenges was to explain irony. To be funny, I would say that it’s the opposite of every example Alanis Morrissette sang about...

I dreamt last night that I was losing my abilities - one piece of my body at a time. Like the old joke, "How do you eat a whole elephant?...

When I was a kid, the first dentist that I went to had a very harsh Germanic sounding name. Being a kid who quickly came to despise his rough tooth...

"I don’t think I’m depressed," Dad tells me one afternoon over the phone: "I know that people with Parkinson’s often suffer from depression. But I don’t think I have that...

Years ago I would spend the months before New Year's Day trying to come up with a resolution or two that would help improve the quality of my life for...

Most of my relatives scattered around the Boyne Mountain Clock Tower with a drink in hand on a foggy evening. We were swaying to the music, celebrating my brother’s new...

Recently, preparing for bed has been getting more and more difficult. I have had Parkinson's disease (PD) for almost 2 years. At times, I use a cane or rollator. I...

Many years ago, I heard a story about 2 men who were identical twins. The storyteller recalled how these twin men had both been diagnosed with the same neurological disorder...

When Posy was told by the neurologist that he thought she had Parkinson’s disease (PD), she was not unduly concerned. She had spent 20 years having tests and treatment for...

During the pandemic, I decided that I would give up my car. I considered all the events unfolding at the time. The COVID-19 virus news reports were not looking good...

The holidays fill my life with a potent mixture of joy and tension. In a conversation with my therapist, I recently explained some of the obvious reasons for my joy:...

I love music. It defines my life, and frankly, I can’t have enough musical mixes to express who and where I am. Let’s not forget the jams. As the band...

Surely, we all know how the conversation goes when looking at a glass that is half-filled. I think there is a comparison between seeing the glass as half-full or half-empty...

"Parkies’ Progress" Posy likes her little play on words, but she is also trying to draw a parallel between the Christian allegory "Pilgrim’s Progress" (by John Bunyan, 1678) and the...

Two years after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, my children were disappointed that I could not tell them what I wanted for Christmas. There truly was nothing I wanted or...

I’ve just turned 80 and I’m not the person I used to be. I suppose that statement is an oxymoron. Not so many years ago, I was quite comfortable, retired with...

In my 72 years, I never had a urinary tract infection (UTI). So, for the past several weeks I just attributed my symptoms to Parkinson's disease (PD). I have a...

It was never my intention to be an advocate for women with Parkinson's disease (PD). I just started writing a blog, Twitchy Woman, to help people who were newly diagnosed...