I have had Parkinson's for most of my natural-born life and it has restricted me in virtually everything I have wanted to do or achieve you would think that I would be so angry with it and resent it for what it has done to me and how I have suffered through all these years of having had it and yet it has taught me everything I know and it has been with like an unwanted friend who I can't get rid of and just have to put up with. And that's the problem with the way the majority of PWP find themselves looking at it. They can only the negative side of it with the day-to-day physical struggle and the anxiety and the sleepless nights and the pain and all the rest of the symptoms that you can possibly think of that you can have and that's the reality of it. It's not very nice, it's difficult and for some, it's just too much to have to cope with, and yet when you look beyond that as I have now after all these years it has become a normal way of life. And that is such a difficult thing to understand and accept. And for some people, they will never understand why anybody would think like that about the disease as a lot of people perceive it to be. But I don't see it as being like that because you reach a point, having lived with it for as long as I have that you just have to accept what you've got. You have to learn to live with it and manage it because the reality of the situation is that it is never going to go away so the sooner you can come to terms with that the better. And it is when you reach that point that you realize the harsh truth about what you are going to have to do and learn to cope with it. It's not easy but there's no alternative and you just have to accept it for what it is. It's a disability but when you see beyond that you realize that it's a test of your character as well to see whether you can cope with the constantly changing symptoms and daily struggles. You have to realize that you are being challenged as to whether you can adapt and adjust to the lifestyle you are faced with. And I have managed to do that and that is the reason why I chronicle all my experiences now because I realize that it is like a roadmap for anybody who has to come to terms with this condition in the future. I didn't really think about how long I have had to live with it because it has just become a normal way of life to me but to most people, it is just one long struggle that they find difficult to cope with. And the reason for that is that they don't see it for what it is. It is and has become part of themselves so they either accept it or they try to fight against it but in the end, there is only going to be one winner and it's not going to be them. The problem is that most people can't get away from the idea of seeing Parkinson's as an affliction or disease that needs to be purged from their body eradicated or even cured. Well if only life was as simple as that, we'd throw even more of our hard-earned cash into it and before you know it Hey presto we would have a miracle vaccine or cure as is the case with COVID-19 dare I say it but that is just isn't going to happen in my view because it's not a disease. I think it's part of everybody's genetic makeup, in other words, it's a part of you and always has been, so if you can accept that then you can start to understand what you must do to learn to live with it. And it's not easy but it can be done.