April 2021 - Good Moves

Never Forgotten

April 28, 2021April 28, 2021 by goodmoves

Older man and woman couple smile at the camera holding drinks.

I usually write my blog on Monday for publication on Tuesday. Sometimes I write it on Sunday, planning and all that being an important thing. As is consistency. Every Tuesday. Without fail. Why Tuesday? Well, why not? It’s not Monday and it’s not Wednesday when you are thinking it’s nearly passed halfway through the week. It seems to work for us. Well. It has up to now. This week has been hard.

This weekend was ANZAC Day in New Zealand. Other countries have Remembrance Day or Veteran’s Day. 25th April is our day to remember. People all over the country attend dawn services and pay their respects. This year was no exception. As I left my house in my Scout uniform with my children I glanced at my mobile phone and saw a message from my step-sister in the UK asking me to call her. I instantly knew my day was about to get a whole lot worse.

My Step-Mother, who lives in the UK, had been in hospital for quite some time. Since October 2020. She’d suffered a stroke and was supposed to be having rehabilitation. It’s hard to arrange in a pandemic situation. The NHS was stretched to capacity even before Covid-19. It’s even worse now. Overworked, underpaid staff pushed to deal with as many people as they can. I guess it’s inevitable that some slip through the cracks.

She didn’t just slip – it’s almost like she was pushed through the gaps in the health system. First sent to a ‘nursing’ home that was actually sheltered housing, where for some reason she took too many blood thinners. We never discovered how it happened. She was rushed back to hospital where my father and her daughter were called to say their goodbyes. Removal of medicine – and all food and drink too it seemed, encouraged her daughter to feed and water her Mother herself. They were in a side room that wasn’t regularly cleaned next to a Covid ward.

With the encouragement of family and friends, she began to significantly improve. She was smiling and laughing, was able to talk coherently and was determined to go home.

She was put back on a ward with other patients which the hospital said meant she could no longer receive visitors. Her health improved a little, then began to decline. She was again sent to a nursing home for rehabilitation, but rarely had opportunity to get out of bed. She was allowed one visitor, once a week. She was doing better. My Dad was even going to take her to a dentist to get her bottom false teeth replaced because hers had been lost by the hospital months earlier.

Then she fell whilst in the care of the home. She was sent back to hospital. My Dad was told she was too frail to use her mobile phone or tablet. He didn’t know what was wrong. He wasn’t sure why she’d gone back to hospital. Worse, nobody was allowed to visit.

Her daughter and my father were called at the weekend. This time there was nothing they could do. She had deteriorated so badly and it was thought she’d caught an infection. She died Saturday afternoon GMT, Sunday morning NZT.

An unwitting victim of Covid-19 and a litany of errors and issues with care. Not counted in official figures of course, yet still a victim of the pandemic and the stress it’s caused to the health system in the UK.

I am bereft. She was my Stepmother but had been kinder than my own birth mother, who was a narcissist and a bully. My Step-Mum showed me incredible kindness and love. In return I did what daughters do. I complained about her, I forgot her birthday often and didn’t call as much as I should. But I loved our conversations. She loved my children like her own grandchildren, and she taught me that family is more than having blood relations.

What does this have to do with Parkinson’s? Well I guess not much, but it reminds us all how very lucky we are, especially in New Zealand, to have (so far) missed the bullet that is Covid-19. I want to fly back to Yorkshire to comfort my father, yet I’d face isolation quarantine, and more importantly, the threat of Covid. I read that Parkinson’s may be one condition that may be exacerbated by Covid. Even if this is not true, I don’t plan on finding out.

Grieving via video-call is not quite the same thing. My children and I have talked at length about her and our grief and sadness is real, but we have no other family to share it with. I have a small family. I want to be with them, but I must stay away.

Because I have cried so much I have been exhausted, which means my sleep patterns are stuffed, which means I’ve not been exercising. I need to do that. I know it’s what she would want. I must try harder, do better at looking after myself. My symptoms have been worse this week.

She spent her life volunteering with the St John Ambulance, of which she was so very proud. She raised heaps for breast cancer care. She believed in helping others and doing the right thing. I will forever hold her close in my heart and can only hope that I can help as many people as she did. I will try my best to reach out and continue to encourage people to live life to the full.

ANZAC Day will forever hold more poignancy for my family. Lest we forget.

Until next time, Kitty.

Who Are We Anyway?

Kitty Fitton is a motivational speaker, MC and comedian. She is also a full-time blogger and writer. She is mother to four small people and was very cross to discover she had Parkinson’s Disease.

Find out more at her personal site below.

Emma Kyriacou is a real-life ninja. Taking up Karate to help fight her Parkinson’s Disease, she’s co-founder of Good Moves and is passionate about promoting exercise to improve mobility and neuroplasticity. (Is that a word? It should be.)

Find out more at her personal site below.

Constant Evaluation

April 20, 2021April 20, 2021 by goodmoves

woman sat on a bean bag on the floor smiling.

It’s been about 13 years since I first noticed I was dragging my foot.

I can’t pinpoint the exact beginning, but I remember the first time I became consciously aware of it, and wondered if there was something wrong with me.

I was 30 years old, and my first baby Niko was somewhere between 6 months and a year old. We were staying with my Mum and Dad on their farm for a holiday. Niko was commando crawling around my parent’s living room when Dad asked me why I was limping.

Dad was the first to voice it, but as soon as the words left his mouth, I realised I had been vaguely aware of a slight non-responsiveness from my left foot. My husband Elia confessed he’d also noticed, and was also wondering what it was. If I concentrated my walking improved temporarily, but concentrating wore me out and I quickly got grumpy.

Being grumpy or anxious was pretty much just me as usual – given I’d hadn’t really slept much at all since Niko was born this isn’t really surprising.

It hadn’t always been that way. As a kid I was happy. I was really active – loved to play tennis and soccer and lots of other ball games, was a good runner, a bit of a dreamer, wrote poems, played the piano. I really loved learning and enjoyed school. I was a huge fan of nature and going into the bush.

Then puberty hit, and my motivation for physical stuff seemed to die. Running suddenly felt like a massive slog. I worked very hard to do well in school, but stopped writing and learning music.

Obviously, I hated my body. I couldn’t decide anything – like what I wanted to do with my life. I had always wanted to write, but now I knew I was really bad at it, and what I actually needed was some way of earning money.

I didn’t think I would be able to handle the rigors of farming life. I was really keen on university but was told all my subject choices were awful. I ended up in law school, convinced I was going to fail.

Somehow though I managed to survive university and my 20s – although I didn’t end up with a law degree! But I graduated, I got married, and we (eventually) got reasonable jobs.

But I didn’t know if I was happy. I didn’t know if I was doing what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I was asking myself ‘is this it?’ I guess.

I had a lot of failures trying to fix this underlying malaise. I tried losing weight. It didn’t make me happy.

I worked hard to get promotions and pay rises. It didn’t make me happy.

We saved up money for an overseas trip, which was an incredible adventure, but over-all I felt much the same.

Got on the property ladder. Meh.

Maybe some anti-anxiety medication would help. Not really.

I know – lets have a baby! Yip having a baby was a wonderful adventure, and Niko the cutest baby in the history of babies. But being a parent added in new difficulties, and I still didn’t feel like I was fulfilling my purpose.

I started to drag my foot before Niko turned one. It took a long time to diagnose the problem, during which I worried that I had a brain tumour.

It wasn’t until my second baby Luka was about 18 months that I was diagnosed with segmental focal dystonia. Yay!! No brain tumour! No death!

I start taking Sinemet. Suddenly life is wonderful. I walk down the street amazed at my ability to walk and not trip up all the time. The doctors are sure about the dystonia thing, and are sure it is not Parkinson’s. It won’t get better I’m told, but it won’t get worse. Just keep taking the Sinemet.

As my “dystonia” got worse and worse over the years (answer take more Sinemet), I grew unhappier and unhappier. I struggled through life basically.

Skip forward a few years, and now I’m 42 years old. I don’t have a Dad anymore. I do have Parkinson’s. And three kids.

I’ve gone back to loving physical activity. The whole body and brain learning of karate is fascinating me. I write. I still work part time and largely from home. I am grateful to be able to use my skills. I get anxious sometimes. When I do I cry loudly and get very obnoxious to my family. I love philosophical conversations with my 13-year-old, snuggles and jokes with my 11-year-old, and singing and dancing to music from both Frozen soundtracks with my four-year-old. I get mad sometimes and rage at things and people. Then I get over it and love people again. My marriage with Elia is now 22 years old (or is it 24? How old are we?), but we’re still learning new things about each other.

Life isn’t perfect. Life is fun sometimes, tiring sometimes. Sometimes it hurts.

It is awesome, it is shit. Life, and me, are constantly evolving.

Who Are We Anyway?

Kitty Fitton is a motivational speaker, MC and comedian. She is also a full-time blogger and writer. She is mother to four small people and was very cross to discover she had Parkinson’s Disease.

Find out more at her personal site below.

Laugh in the Face of Adversity

April 14, 2021April 14, 2021 by goodmoves

woman in a red dress talking into a microphone

It is currently World Parkinson’s Awareness Week. Or month, depending on how you look at it. It was World Parkinson’s Day on 11^th April, James Parkinson’s birthday. But enough about him. Some of us sadly have to be only too aware of flaming Parkinson’s every single day. It’s a bit of a drag. (No pun intended.)

I was delighted to be asked to take part in a fundraiser to raise awareness about Parkinson’s, a comedy night held in Wellington, New Zealand. It was a great night, and I was lucky enough to meet some fabulous people from our community.

It got me thinking about comedy regarding disabilities. When I first began doing stand-up everyone thought I would be doing the same, stale old stuff about ‘shaken not stirred’, wank-jokes and falling over. I was warned that making fun of people and Parkinson’s was a sure-fire way to disaster.

However, that’s not my style. Laughing at someone with an uncontrollable tremor isn’t something I personally find that amusing. There’s so much more rope in pointing the finger at the unafflicted, the able-bodied, the smug healthy people. My act is all about the reactions I have experienced and trust me, there’s heaps of material there. Even the dear people from Parkinson’s NZ copped it from me. Everyone (and I mean everyone) kept saying how they were huge Parkinson’s supporters. Check out my link below to see what I thought of that.

For World Parkinson’s Day / Week / Month (in my case lifetime) I would like to share a little clip from Emma and myself. It’s short, funny and sad all at the same time. Oh – and another clip from the comedy night. I hope you enjoy it.

It’s a short one this week but hey – you get films! Keep smiling, keep moving, keep in touch.

Until next time, Kitty.

Who Are We Anyway?

Kitty Fitton is a motivational speaker, MC and comedian. She is also a full-time blogger and writer. She is mother to four small people and was very cross to discover she had Parkinson’s Disease.

Find out more at her personal site below.

Jump!

April 6, 2021April 6, 2021 by goodmoves

Learning to jump – both literally launching oneself into the air, and figuratively jumping right into the deep end, or doing something you’re afraid of – normally are equally impossible for me. More like learning to fly (“I’m learning to fly/ but I ain’t got wings/ Coming down/ Is the hardest thing”).

Unlike Tom Petty though, I’ve got the coming down part sorted.

Jumping is a thing with me partly due to a kata I’m learning called ‘Enpi’, which roughly translates from Japanese as ‘flying swallow’. It is one of four Sentei kata that karateka at brown belt level need to know. They are all much longer, more difficult kata than I’ve learnt for previously. Enpi, although apparently the shortest Sentei kata by numbers of moves, is famous for this spinning jump you have to do at the end.

I don’t actually need wings to do this jump. Stronger leg muscles on the other hand would be handy. I do work on building leg strength fairly consistently, but at the same time I am one those dopamine-deficient people who struggle to maintain body mass. Exercise, particularly strength building exercise, is the proverbial plug in the dam at this point.

To do the jump you have to pivot from a forward leaning position, jump off one foot, spin 360 degrees in the air (feet tucked up) and land in the back stance (with about 70% of your weight supported on your bent back leg).

(Kitty – “Good grief!”. Rolls eyes.)

Yes, this is difficult stuff. But I didn’t really realise the extent of it at first. I was too used to seeing kids (aged from about 8 to teenagers) do this jump before. They don’t seem to have a problem with it. They love it, and they look like more like flying squirrels than swallows though… maybe some kind of squirrel ninja.

I, however, am 42 years old. My joints are slightly dodgier, and I lack the spring of youth. To say the least. It is now making sense to me why Sensei has stopped making those over 35 do Enpi very often.

I think it was hearing that maybe I wouldn’t have to do it though that made me really dig my heels in and want to learn this jump. I had been in a bit of a slump before that. After passing the brown belt test I’d felt jubilant and victorious. I’ve done it! Then I glanced up at the size of the mountain left to climb, and at once started down-grading my expectations. The fear of thinking I can’t do anymore was stopping me from trying.

Which brings me to the second part of the significance of learning to jump for me – it is really a metaphor for doing what terrifies me. I got inspiration to bust through the veil of terror partly from being told it was okay to not try. But a lot of the inspiration also comes from my friend Kitty. She thinks I am a hard worker, but she amazes me with her ability to do brave stuff. I went to support her at a comedy gig she did recently. I thought I was being brave by going out at night (I’m afraid of being tired and freezing up a long way from the safety of home). But Kitty is the one who bloody got on stage and performed her heart out.

She is my jump inspiration. Jump in and do what terrifies you. Don’t listen to any voices telling you can’t – they don’t know shit!

As for the Enpi jump, no I can’t do it yet. I am amassing an amusing training montage, which has launched me back into some of my favourite anthems to jumping from the 80s and 90s. Van Halen led to the Pointer Sisters (which then obviously led to me doing a spoof of Hugh Grant’s dancing PM from Love Actually), which then led to Kriss Kross (‘nuff said), and House of Pain (truly an inspired band name for this context).

I’m having fun, and so are other people who’ve seen my attempts. I’m going to keep trying, even if just for the music.

I certainly do not intend to be put off by the fact that all this shouldn’t be possible.

Emma.

If you feel similar, if you need help or feel unhappy:

Reach out to your health professional, doctor, friend or family member. Please don’t allow yourself to feel alone and unhappy. There are people out there to help you.

Who Are We Anyway?

Kitty Fitton is a motivational speaker, MC and comedian. She is also a full-time blogger and writer. She is mother to four small people and was very cross to discover she had Parkinson’s Disease.

Find out more at her personal site below.