It’s World Parkinson’s Day, which is all about raising awareness about the condition, the fastest growing neurological disease in the world. There is no cure, but medication can help to control/alleviate symptoms, which can be many and varied, both motor and cognitive. I know a number of people who have been living with Parkinson’s for some years, and I know it is not easy. Last year my partner was diagnosed with the condition. This poem gives an idea about just one of the many motor symptoms he had. Thankfully, at the moment, this one seems to be well controlled by the drugs.
Mr Wobblyman
His feet stick to the ground, he can’t move them at all
however much he wants to, however hard he tries
he is fixed to the floor, his shoes superglued to the tiles.
He tips forward, so far that I think he’ll hit his nose on the step,
but then he comes back up, tilts back, surely falling over now...
and up again, upright, and suddenly he staggers
in reverse, across the kitchen, not slowly, quite quickly,
in fact so fast I think he won’t stop and will continue out
through the back door, across the garden,
over the back fence into the donkey paddock.
But no, he does stop, he always does.
Just like the weeble-wobble tipple-topple man
who lived in my toybox when I was a toddler
he always comes upright, just like magic. So far.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roly-poly_toy
#worldparkinson'sday
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