Parkinson's Ass And Legs

Since getting PD, a different me inhabits me that takes getting used to. Sometimes you can only laugh at it and what it does. Take my butt. Not the but that is a conjunction that connects two clauses to form a sentence but the butt that is my ass, the part of the body I sit on and in sitting lies the problem. My butt is fine with sitting but it forgot how to get up. I relax in a chair, read a good book or magazine, and then try to stand and my butt acts like an immoveable weight glued to the chair. If the chair is soft and I sink in so my butt is lower than my knees forget about getting up.

I’ve learned to do side reverse butt swings to gain the momentum to get up. I call it the PDHP, the Parkinson’s Hokey Pokey. Swing the right butt cheek
a little forward, then the left, and right and left again. Then finally try to rise from the edge of the chair, usually to fall back once or twice before butt bouncing high enough to finally make it up. 

Then there is a magnet in my butt that tries to pull me backward into every soft chair, couch, or bed it sees which brings me back to trying to get up. It seems like my ass is a seat seeking missile honing in on every soft sitting surface it sees. I often loose a little control on the way down as momentum takes over but usually manage to hit the target if not the center. 

My legs also developed a mind of their own. Talk about forgetting their purpose and mechanics. I used to walk smoothly, my legs working in a rhythmic and coordinated way without thinking. The good news is that I walk 2 or 3 times a day and can go for 20 to 30 minutes although my gait is getting a little slow. Now and then my legs don’t listen to me. I tell them to walk forward and sometimes they refuse. The right foot slightly hesitates to start. We are stuck here for a while. Feet get moving. Once moving there isn’t any hesitation but sometimes the right foot drags just a little and I stub my toe. Arms no longer swing, right hand clenches up, and feet feel heavy so it takes conscious effort to move them.

Worse, at times I say forward and my feet go backward. Retropulsion is one of the new words I’ve learned. I say forward and they move backward causing me to loose balance and, you guessed it, my butt propels me toward the first sitting surface it sees. Feet don’t fail me now.

Originally I was going to include a section describing the state of my mind and emotions and call this post PD Ass and Mind or something like that but I am I am a little tired so I’m not going to do that. I was going to start with some facts like 50% of people with PD experience depression and 40% anxiety and then go into why but I am not going to do that. Then I was going to say that PD is not so much a physical disease as a battle for the control of ones mind and emotions but I’m not going to. Then I was going to talk about impulse control problems and hallucinations as side effects of the PD meds but I am not going to. And then I think I was going to say that my mind and emotions are still pretty good and then … well I don’t remember what I was going to do so you will have to wait for me to get it together and write a future post entitled Parkinson’s And The Mind or Parkinson’s And Emotions or something like that. That is, if I can remember.