Chris puts focus on Parkinson’s with video diary
TO mark World Parkinson’s Day, artist Chris Worswick has released a video of living with Parkinson’s in a bid to raise awareness.
Chris, from Oakenclough Road, Bacup, was diagnosed in 2018 and also revealed she believes there could be a link between the incurable disease and the five electric shocks administered in the 1970s while she spent four weeks in a mental health ward of a Scarborough hospital.
The 76-year-old great, great-grandmother said: “My marriage had broken down and was driving away with all my belongings when I had an accident in Whitby and I crashed into a wall.
“Although I was calm when the police arrived, my daughter was in the car and so they took her away. I was going through a nervous breakdown which led me to be sectioned.
“In the hospital, I can remember being taken to a room where they put electrodes on my head and then I woke up feeling fuzzy, very itchy and I went and had a cold bath to relieve the itchiness. “I remember being taken to have five electric shocks. After four weeks, I was allowed to go out into Scarborough when I sat and talked to people I met before my parents came and took me back home to Heald Green in Manchester.”
Her sole focus was to get her daughter back and Chris got a full-time job at Norweb enabling her to buy a house. She eventually succeeded, and her daughter returned to live with her full-time; sadly she died last year.
Chris said: “When I left the hospital, I tried to get off the tablets I had been put on as soon as possible, but the hardest thing was trying to get over the mental obstacle of leaving the door and going outside, that is now what Parkinson’s is like for me.
“When I come to a doorway, I feel like my feet are being held back, my head sees it as a cliff edge and my knees refuse to bend. It is called freezing and sometimes the harder you try to get over it, the more difficult it is.
“Sometimes you just have to wait until it clicks into place and you can go through the door.
“My handwriting has also become really small but if I keep practising, I can get it back to normal.”
The 2020 lockdown did not help her condition because she had to isolate for three months so was not able to leave the house and was only able to wander around the garden.
Chris, who has been married to Paul for 42 years, has been finding natural solutions to ease her symptoms.
In 2020, she returned to horse riding, which has been a passion from being nine. At Peersclough Packhorses in Lumb, Chris found she was able to escape the limitations of Parkinson’s for the 90 minutes when she was in the saddle.
Chris said: “For the last year, I have also been using my home-made nettle tea to ease my condition and I also make nettle soup. I use dandelion leaves in salad and have heard that the roots are good for making coffee so I will be trying that too.”
She is now hoping to make contact with anyone who has Parkinson’s and who has had electric shock therapy, to see if there is a link.
World Parkinson’s Day was on April 11. Chris has sent her video, made last year by Daniel Buckley of P4otos, to the charity Parkinson’s UK and it can be viewed on the charity’s YouTube channel by searching for ‘My Unpredictable Parkinson’s.’