Right now I’m finding it hard to type. My left hand is annoyingly unresponsive without a little extra oomph from me. It’ll come good in a bit, I recently took my tablets. I’m still bad at taking them on time. It’s not that I don’t know I have to, it’s more like a silent rebellion. “I don’t need you! I can do this, look I’m actually doing really well.” Then it’s like hitting a wall. Erk. Rats. If I hadn’t waited I wouldn’t have crashed and now wouldn’t be waiting for the most unattractive / desirable coming ‘up’ there is.

Though of course for those of us with Parkinson’s, ‘coming up’ is exactly what we want. We need those little suckers to do the trick and help make our bodies move again. But I talked of this a couple of weeks ago, you don’t need to hear that again, do you?

Last week saw the end of Parkinson’s Awareness Month. Irritatingly overshadowed by this thing called Covid-19. Not to let a little thing like a global pandemic get in our way, we’ve still tried to do bits here and there. I was stoked to be asked to join in with a video about exercise and Parkinson’s by the truly inspirational Christine Jeya. She’s an Australian (but I don’t hold it against her) living in Peru, and she took up gymnastics to help combat her own Parkinson’s symptoms. The results are genuinely amazing and inspired fat, overweight me to get my arse into gear and do better.

I’ve worked out and done yoga almost every day of lockdown. I don’t look any different and still can’t get back into my clothes, the ones I was wearing 12 months ago. Everyone around me has been joking about putting on weight. I have been doing my best to keep fit. I’m still cross that my trip to the UK resulted in putting on heaps of weight. That, closely followed by Christmas saw me even bigger, even unhealthier, and even grumpier.

I knew I had to make changes. Christine’s video made me cringe (look at all those thing healthy people talking about how much they love the gym) as I stand out like a whale among goldfish. However her other film got me thinking. I know it’s a long road. I’m 45 and lazy. But with hard work and determination, maybe I too can improve. I’ve been doing yoga for just over a month. I’ve been using an app on my mobile every day, and while Miss 14 and I are convinced the pretty girl showing you the movements on the screen is an automaton, we notice that we have improved. I can stand on one leg for longer. Hell. I can stand on one leg!

Inspired by Christine, we videoed ourselves last night and we hope to compare it in 12 months’ time. Who knows? Perhaps my extremely tight left hamstring and difficulty in doing any kind of lunge with my left leg in front will vastly improve. I used to think that I couldn’t improve much as I had a degenerative disease. Now I know it’s not true. I can work hard. I can fight it. I can refuse to give in. I might not enjoy the daily grind of forcing myself to do 45 mins plus of exercise, I am learning to stop eating out of boredom. I’m trying to eat less and drink heaps more water.