peter
1/2“I was a mother with two children, a lawyer, and a not-so-bad golf player. One day I went to my GP because my handwriting was getting smaller and my fingers started to shake on my right hand. A week later I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. They told me it was degenerative, progressive and incurable. I was devastated. I cried on the couch for months. Eventually I thought to myself, I should stop crying and do something about this. There must be another way! I was never the sort of person who gives up on things easily, you see. So I spent the next eight years working out what Parkinson’s was about. I started off with physiotherapy, and they also advised me to get a personal trainer. After a holiday I figured out the medications weren’t working as well as it did when I exercised every day. So I started researching the connection and realised different people already had different techniques, and there were lots of organisations out there. The thing was, nobody was talking to each other. And none of them really understood the disease. I began to research the brain and collect all the different methods, and developed a programme called the Five Elements. It’s based on medication, awareness, nutrition, emotional well-being and exercise. I started blogging about my experiences around the same time because people wanted to hear my story. In the following months, it made it into the top 40 recommended medical blogs in the US. But I was very frustrated that there was nothing going on in Ireland at the time. People didn’t seem interested in Parkinson’s. So again, one evening I was sitting crying on the couch with my kids, when my daughter said to me, you either do something about it, or you stop crying. That night we set up a charity page, designed the logo and named it Move for Parkinson’s. As Einstein says, ‘Nothing happens until something moves.’ And it proved to be true; with life, with research, and with Parkinson’s too. You can either keep crying or you go do something yourself!”
-This interview is part of a collaborative campaign between Humans of Dublin and Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, speaking to social entrepreneurs across the country about what drives them and seeing the impact they are having in communities around Ireland. Find out more about how you can apply for funding and support for your idea or project and help change Ireland here: Social Entrepreneurs Ireland #ChangingIreland –