Terri

“If you don’t ask, it won’t happen but ask and look what can happen!!”

Diagnosed at 64

I first diagnosed myself with P.D. – mainly because my husband said something is wrong with your voice, and my handwriting had gotten very small. My sister was diagnosed 10 years before so I was kind of familiar with the word, Parkinson’s. So, after researching the symptoms I told my doctor I had it. It took a bunch of tests and a year before a doctor diagnosed me. Since then my husband and I have facilitated a P.D. Support Group in our town and with a lot of help from the community and our medical facilities we have also helped launch a caregivers support group, a website, more people trained in LSVTBig and LSVTLoud and soon the Loud Crowd, and Rock Steady Boxing is coming to town! It has not been a one person thing – it has taken a lot of people who care to get all these things going.  We have gotten a lot of help from the APDA in St. Louis for our support group, information, wonderful speaker programs , and soon I will be going to a F.O.G. bootcamp, for Freezing of Gait, that is a real challenge for me. Also we have an exercise program started here by people who were trained by the APDA that meets every week! What we have learned is that if you don’t ask, it won’t happen but ask and look what can happen!!