It is truly inspiring to read others stories, I thought I'd submit mine for consideration.
I don't think it's inspiring but it is my story:
While washing my hair under the shower sometime around the late 1990's my left hand stopped responding to my brain - for no apparent reason.
This was my first memory of an inkling that I might have a problem, but I shrugged it off thinking it was just a sign of ageing (I was in my early 40's).
I was working as a truck driver and over the next few years I'd occasionally stuff up a gear change, my left leg not quite in synch with my brain. I also noticed my left arm stopped swinging as I walked.
Because of domestic circumstances I left truck driving and bought a business I could run from home, which required a lot of physical effort and manual dexterity and I was confronted with the painful, both physical and emotional, reality that I could no longer ignore the fact that my left side was seriously out of synch with my right and was constantly cramping.
I was also having difficulty handling any type of stress, flying off the handle in the most trivial of circumstances and suffered terrible headaches… I started to fear that I had a brain tumour.
I'd just turned 49 when in July 2005 when, gathering all my courage, I went to my doctor and arranged a CAT scan, which returned a negative result, no sign of a tumour.
I was then referred to a neurologist who gave me the most thorough physical examination I'd ever had, at the conclusion of which he said: "You have Parkinsons disease (Pd)".
I said I had no idea what he was talking about and he explained Pd to me.
Two things stuck out in my mind to his explanation -
1. Medical science didn't know what caused it and
2. There is no cure
He prescribed dopamine replacement medication and referred me back to my doctor for treatment for depression, which he said was often associated with Pd.
While I was devastated at the diagnosis, I was relieved it wasn't a terminal illness.
I'd ridden motorbikes for much of the previous 30 years and loved it, but as the symptoms had developed it had become more and more painful to ride as the cramps had got worse.
My last ride was a BMW K1200 GT one of the most comfortable bikes in the world, but I couldn't sit on it for more than a few minutes without a serious cramp running down my left leg.
Two weeks after starting the medication, emotionally as flat as a pancake, grumpy with the world and everyone in it, and not having ridden the BMW for a couple of months I came to the conclusion that my life had lost meaning, that I was a waste of space and decided to go for one last ride, that I had no intention of coming back from.
I rode to a long straight stretch that I knew and opened the throttle, sizing up the trees along the side of the road.
While passing 220 km/hr, the trees a blur I realised that I wasn't in pain, it hit me that the medication must be working.
I was ecstatic and backed off and just kept riding and riding.
Eighteen months or so later I did sell the BMW, realising I was no longer safe on two wheels but by that time I'd adjusted enough to the various medications and stuff that I need to manage the symptoms of Pd and depression.
While Pd is a constant unwanted companion, since being diagnosed I've developed a philosophy of living for the day, not for a cure.
Whether a cure will be found in my lifetime I don't know but I will not allow the fear that it won't, rob me of the joy of living right now.
Andrew Webb