Our meeting this month should be interesting, inasmuch as Adult Protective Services will be there to learn about Parkinson's firsthand from a Movement Disorder Specialist and to see the various manifestations of Parkinson's Disease. The problem is that many folks have no frame of reference to understand that PD is different for every individual. Michael J. Fox is just one manifestation of many. You and I each have our own distinct issues.
Why in the world would we have two such esteemed interests at our meeting? Well, the neurologist was already scheduled. Then, we experienced Adult Protective Services visiting yet another of our Parkie families. Because falling can be a prominent feature of PD, and injuries can occur with those falls, someone placed a call and voila! APS knocked on the door.
What kind of leaders would my wife and I be if we didn't call APS ourselves? So, we did just that. After a very lengthy conversation with an APS worker (a big thanks to our local gal for staying on the phone to learn more about PD), the worker said she would definitely attend, and invite all available social workers to do the same. You see, Michael J. Fox is not in our membership, and none of our members manifest their symptoms as he does. We think she and her peers will be surprised to see how normal we all look, but still have disabilities that can cause us harm if we aren't careful.
I guess the point of this missive is that if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it might just be Parkinson's. We can fall, injure ourselves, and look like someone smacked us around a bit, because maybe, just maybe, we didn't get our hands out in front of us before taking a bite out of the concrete with our face. Things happen a bit too fast, frequently, for us to catch ourselves. But with a little help from our caregivers, and a little understanding from APS, we can educate others as to what is really going on. I can't wait for tomorrow's meeting to see how it all shakes out. (Pun intended.)
