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April 26, 2026

Parkinson’s Disease motivates both the selfless and the selfish  
When you have Parkinson’s Disease, it’s hard to escape a narrowing of your focus down to your particular struggle. After all, PD is constantly up in your face impolitely reminding you it is still here, and has no plans to go away, thank you very much. From the constant repetition of “What did you say?” when you try to make yourself heard in conversation, to your souvenir bumps, bruises, and abrasions from the falls you have taken, it’s hard to forget you have this chronic, catastrophic disorder.

But your disease can also affect others in ways that carry a profound message. And those affected are not only family members and friends, they can be total strangers. 

I once passed out in a busy restaurant after a day of walking around Seattle. I was overcome by an intense nausea. Mortified at the thought of throwing up in front of innocent fellow diners, I booked it for the restroom.

I didn’t make it. 

Instead, I blacked out and crashed to the floor in the middle of the dining room. I attribute the blackout and subsequent fall to a condition frequently affecting people with Parkinson’s, orthostatic hypotension, the extreme sudden lowering of blood pressure when we move to stand, rendering us vulnerable to dizziness, lightheadedness, and passing out. 

I regained consciousness to find myself flat on my back looking up from the floor at a circle of concerned faces. My brief bout of nausea thankfully resolved without any actual heaving. Strangers whose pleasant dinner I had rudely interrupted reacted not with exasperation, but with concern for my wellbeing. In the short time I was out, people I didn’t know called paramedics on their cell phones and left their dinners to get cold until they were assured I was not in danger.

Although they didn’t know it, they had all been touched by Parkinson’s, through me. All they saw was a guy in trouble, and they did what they could to help. Other people have actually picked me up, despite my protests, in grocery stores and in parking lots when I have fallen while running errands. 

Events like this are a useful reminder of a wonderful thing, that people acknowledge our common humanity and mutual responsibility almost automatically when they encounter a fellow human in distress. This instinct to help the stricken is one thing what keeps our species going. 

But I see I have fallen into the very trap I was trying to warn of when I started this post, narrowing the view down to my particular troubles, ignoring the struggles of others. So, let’s look at how another person’s Parkinson’s can provoke a less edifying result.

Think back a few years to a video that went viral. A knot of angry people were protesting healthcare reform. A lone man carrying a sign that read “I have Parkinson’s Disease” actually crawled over on his hands and knees to confront the group. Unimpressed, they taunted him yelling “Communist!” and “No more handouts!” Later one remorseful member of the group recanted and apologized.

So, a case of Parkinson’s Disease can bring out the best or the worst in your fellow travelers through this vale of tears. It is an affirmation of our common vulnerability and our common responsibility to one another. It’s not “your Parkinson’s” or “my Parkinson’s’’ it’s our Parkinson’s.

by Peter Dunlap-Shohl
NW Parkinson’s Blogger and Person with Parkinson’s

“It is the work of the creative to be a prosthetic imagination for the distracted and the dull.”
– Maxwell Hubert Maxwell, playwright, butterfly collector, amateur surgeon and snob.