Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.

That is a tough sentence to write. Ten years is both a very long time, yet no time at all. Parkinson’s did not arrive one morning and suddenly transform me into somebody else. Instead, Parky (my [un]affectionate nickname for it) has increasingly and unwelcomely wedged its way into different parts of my life — sometimes quietly, sometimes rather ‘less courteously’.

For several years, I continued doing what academics are particularly good at doing: I carried on.

I worked, taught, researched, travelled, presented; I got on with the job, Aas I was trained to. As I thought was the right thing to do. During the pandemic, I started The Third Degree, a research support initiative working with postgraduate researchers, academics, institutions and independent researchers. That grew into something far more substantial than I initially imagined – and I am incredibly grateful for that too.

The Parkinson’s kept progressing though. The tremors got worse. My movement got more restricted. Then, late 2024, I began losing my speech. Not my voice, but my speech. Stringing a coherent sentence together became the ‘battle ultimate’ – for me at least. As somebody whose professional life had been built substantially around communication, this was terrifying.

I didn’t know how to cope. The medical profession where I live felt unhelpful and unsympathetic. “Just accept it” was the ‘professional (medical)’ message being received. So, I withdrew.

I stepped away from a lot of my teaching. I declined opportunities that I so desperately wanted to accept. Worse, I became increasingly conscious of my body and increasingly worried about how other people could perceive it. At some stage, someone would notice the tremors and comment about them. Or ask about my movement challenges. Or notice I was struggling to articulate my thoughts and mock my speech. Or simply, I would implode from the pressure of worrying about whether others would notice. In a way, I did. It consumed me. I was fearful that others, especially those in the universities that I partner with on projects, would notice and then interpret – interpret my slowness as uncertainty, incompetence, and/or inability.

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