Shirley Oda

I want to acknowledge Shirley Oda who is organizing the walk for our Century House group in New Westminster.

She does an amazing job and when we arrive ready to walk we know that she is ready for us to participate.

It's perfect.

Kathy's Update

Each year at this time I think about what my Parkinson’ s diagnosis has meant to me at this point in my PD journey.

As I have noted before, Parkinson’s has a list of symptoms and the variety present in any one person varies. I always see it as a dart board with all the possible symptoms around the edge. Then Mother Nature takes her dart, tosses it, and randomly hits various symptoms. These symptoms become the description of a particular person’s disease.

For me, tremors have not been a primary factor in my life.  But, they are increasing slightly.  In early morning, as I wake up, often my left leg and butt decide to take a little shake. But, fortunately, that doesn’t seem to last long.

I have been working hard to handle my most trying symptoms of a lack of motivation and fatigue. I have always been a busy person with work, family, friends, and volunteer activities.

I have learned that if I volunteer to take on some tasks, that forces me to get going and it helpful. So, facilitating the New Westminster Parkinson Support Group, the Stirling Place Social committee (that’s my strata building) and coordinating my book club help get me going. Nothing like responsibilities to force me to get active. On the other hand, I need to allow for those “bad” days (really tired, misbehaving gut or just plain blahs).

We are now working on figuring out what sorts of travel will work for me.

The Parkinson Society is a source of much support and information and I am pleased to be in involved in supporting the Super Walk which is the  major fundraiser for the association.