One step forward in loose sand automatically challenges your forward progress. As your foot slides back whether you want it to or not simply walking forward is not easy. When climbing sand dunes, sliding back down is a constant struggle you try to prevent.
Walking with Parkinson’s is quit similar. You tell your foot to step forward. It doesn’t. You concentrate on moving forward. It doesn’t. Frustration starts to mount when you try to see how far you have come. But you haven’t.
As Nellita and her dear friend chose to climb the sand dunes, feet could not simply step forward. After many steps only slight progress had been made. But working hard to try to walk felt exhausting.
How do you tell others what it’s like to have Parkinson’s? Along with all the work it takes to move forward, the fear of falling backwards is as real as tipping over from the slant of the dunes. So much effort, yet little success.
Nellita strives for her neighbors to comprehend her daily walk, or lack of it. Perhaps they should walk in lose sand and climb the dunes with her. Or, what she needs to realize, that’s what they have been doing with her for years.
Higgins Valley Moments. . . where the journey, including climbing sand dunes, continues.
Nurse Paula 