Tonight I cried

Warning: This is not a happy post!

Tonight my Physiotherapist came to my home to help me with my exercise programme. What you need to understand is this is a programme tailoured to address the things that Parkies makes difficult for me. This is not your average ‘one size fits all’ gym programme. It is personal and tonight I found it overwhelming.

Surprisingly, it is not the ‘big’ exercises, the physical exercises – which do have their challenges absolutely – that rocked me, it was something seemingly innocuous that shook me up.

I have noticed that I shake when I use my left hand to bring food to my mouth. Because of this, one of my exercises uses a fork and a plate and me mimicking stabbing a piece of food and bringing it to my mouth, smoothly and in one movement. It is hard! It feels ridiculous that something that I have done since I was a toddler is now something I have to concentrate so hard on to achieve.

Psychologically, I get that I need to focus on my arm swing on my affected side, I get that I need to stride out with big movements to walk. I get the more physical exercises and I’m OK with that, but this small task by it’s very smallness shouldn’t be hard but it is.

So tonight, I snuggled in my husband’s arms and I cried. I cried because I don’t want this to be my reality, but it is. I cried because of the fact that Parkies feels too real tonight and it feels huge that this little task is so hard.

But sometimes, maybe I need to cry. To feel that it is unfair that I have to live through these challenges. Maybe we all need to cry sometimes, for it is a challenging life we now must live.

But tomorrow, I will get up again and challenge Parkies and practice the tasks – big and small – and pick myself up and carry on. Because if I don’t Parkies will be winning and that’s just not going to happen!