I'll be honest, I had no idea it was that MANY people. And if I have no idea, yet I have been living with someone who has Parkinson’s disease for 20 plus years, how can we expect the rest of the world to be educated? And I guess the answer is we can’t.
I get so angry when I hear that Parkinson’s is not a recognised “disease” in Australia – my mum (who has Parkinson’s) was told the closet support group she could attend was an MS support group. She got there and was told she wasn’t welcome.. The last 20 odd years have been akin to running in circles and I’m here to tell you it is bullshit the way we ignore anyone who has this disease.
I could tell you 100 stories of how ignorant this country is in relation to this disease (and I know this is relevant to many diseases, but I comment on this one as it is what affects my family), starting with a rehabilitation centre in Brighton in Victoria that can only be described as something out of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (my mum was supposed to be there for 5 days to learn how to manage her disease, instead she was there for 33 days and it really was a f***** up place; we signed her out because of the damage it did to her mind, her body and her self esteem). Come to think of it, I should dedicate a blog to it and maybe one day it will, I am still mortified at the treatment or lack thereof that my mother received there in 2003 – I am sure it sent her back 10 years. Then we have the “trial surgery” she underwent in 2006 that was supposed to see her in Melbourne for 7 days – 36 days later we were able to consider bringing her home.
Anyway, not
to get too carried away, the point of this blog is approximately 1 in every 350
Australians is affected by Parkinson’s disease. I
say it again.
WOW, WOW, WOW.
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| Muhammad Ali & Michael J Fox - both have Parkinson's |
