STUMBLE AND FALL You have to see what Parkinson's can do to a fellow human being to believe it. It can be very cruel at times if you don't get on top of it both mentally and physically. It can stop you in your tracks. But it's not the end of the world because you can find ways around most things if you dig your heels in and push back against it. I sat in a wheelchair for ten years and accepted it and I stopped trying because it was easier and safer for me to do that. If I sat in a wheelchair I wouldn't fall and hurt myself and my family didn't have to worry about me. The problem was that if I did that then I became reliant on the wheels and my legs became redundant. I stopped trying to use my legs because it was easier to get from point A to point B in a wheelchair. But it wasn't just my legs because what I was saying to the world was that I was accepting my disability and succumbing to it. That is the easy way. I used the wheelchair in every aspect of my life because I didn't want to fall and pick myself up off the ground in case I hurt myself. What did I just say? I didn't want to fall. And then I realised what I was doing. It seemed obvious that if I tried to walk I would stumble and fall. I was falling on the floor because that's what happens if you have Parkinson's you are supposed to do that. But what happens if you walk across a room and you don't stumble and fall what then? I had fallen into thinking that everything about living with Parkinson's was bad and nothing was good, and that's the worst thing that you can do. Live a life of negativity. Parkinson's is not a metaphor for everything bad in your life. It's a problem waiting to be solved and nothing more than that. So, if you stumble and fall, so what? Pick yourself up off the floor and try again. Robert James Keene 2024