Parkinson's Iceberg

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Bridgwater 5km Fun Run

After a suggestion from one of my students, I decided to have a go at my first ever organised run, supported by my wife and several students. As usual nothing goes quite to plan as I fractured my wrist 2 days before, but that's typical of me! I had in my mind that if this doesn't kill me then I'd start doing many more runs in aid of Parkinson's disease charities in the future - watch this space...

Group photo before we start. We all decided to run in a 4Life Martial Arts gi, but that quickly changed to 4Life T-shirts but not everyone had one... So I lent out a few of mine hence why 4 people are all called Mr Churchill!

From the left: Charlie, Kathryn, Lewis, Mark, Ollie, me (the real Mr Churchill!) and my wife Jane.

Under starters orders - we're not nervous!

Ollie was the first of our group across the line in a blistering time!

 He barely looks tired!

 Mark next with Lewis hot on his heels.

 Looks like Lewis could've done the 10km with ease!

 Charlie was next across from our group.

 I promised to stay alongside whoever was slowest in our group but they let me sprint finish the last 100 metres or so.

 I was a lot more tired than I look in this picture!

 Turning back to see Kathryn and Jane finish holding hands and supporting each other!

 So proud of both my wife, Jane, and my student, Kathryn.

 Hugs all round (so we don't fall over!)

Well deserved medals for everyone!

Thanks to Kathryn's dad, Ian, for taking the photos and her mum, Sharyn, for looking after all our keys, phones, jackets, etc.

Ups and Downs

3 types of people

Don't forget you can follow me on my journey through the shaky world of Parkinson's on Instagram and Twitter. It's the first time I've had accounts with either of these platforms so I'm learning as I go and you'll have to bear with me!

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/soupdaysareover/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/SoupDaysAreOver

Once I've gone public I'll set up a Facebook presence as well but it's really hard to keep my name off of all these things!

4 Week Anniversary picture

4 Week Anniversary

So yesterday marked the 4 week anniversary of my diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (Pd); I've made some positive steps and some forward thinking decisions and tried to leave the negativity behind me. I still haven't gone "public" with it but am thinking more and more that this would be a good move and that if it meets with any negativity from people then I don't need them in my life.

As a martial arts instructor I fully understand that I may lose students over this announcement but I've had Pd for several years now. If my students or their parents were happy with my teaching yesterday, why wouldn't they like my teaching today? If they're not happy being taught by someone with Pd, then I'm not happy teaching them.

My future plans may be a little shaky but I intend to enjoy every step!

I have Early Onset Parkinson's Disease.

BUGGER.

Not many people know yet, hence I haven't used my real name, although it's hard to remain invisible whilst trying to draw attention to something!

Nothing I can do about it so I thought I'd highlight the issue and poke a little fun at this indiscriminate disease with a social media presence.

I hope to create a place where anyone (myself very much included) can ask questions about the disease and others (experts, sufferers, carers) can provide answers, advice, or humour as laughter really does help sometimes.

In time I hope to learn how to use Blogger, Instagram, and Twitter, and add that to what I know about Facebook and YouTube because at the moment, as in life, I'm making this up and learning as I go!

Care to join me on the journey?

p.s. The soup reference is a joke about my worsening shakes and not to be taken seriously.