Walking version of beautiful game helped me tackle life-changing disease diagnosis
MumlivingwithearlyonsetParkinson’s has hailedWalkingFootballforhelpingherdeal withconditionandimprovingmentalhealth
Developing the symptoms of young onset Parkinson’s at the age of just 43 hasn’t been a walk in the park for Lanarkshire mum-of-one, Karen McBride.
She and her loving family have had to learn to accept that the tremors she experiences in her limbs, the unsettling ‘facial masking’ which makes it difficult for them to interpret her mood, her clumsiness, her struggles with walking and her loss of bladder control, are all a part of living with Parkinson’s for Karen.
Yet, three years since she was diagnosed at age 49 with the condition that affects the brain and causes shaking, slow movements and stiffness that can worsen over time, Karen has found release from her ailments through an unlikely pastime.
The woman who, until diagnosis, had no interest in partaking in physical exercise of any kind, is now a dedicated follower of walking football.
Through the matches she looks forward to every week, she has seen a marked improvement in her physical and mental health.
And she’s also formed a strong bond with other people who are living with Parkinson’s – like-minded people who have helped her through the toughest of times.
Karen’s journey with the condition began back in 2017, when one of her colleagues at a large supermarket chain noticed that she was not swinging her left arm when she walked.
After taking another in a succession of stumbles in the supermarket yard, a manager warned her: “It’s about time you started being more careful around here.” When she began to detect a tremor in her right side the following year, Karen made an appointment to see her GP.
With the results of blood and thyroid tests, and testing for MS, all coming back clear, Karen – whose mum had experienced the common movement disorder known as ‘benign tremor’ – “just carried on with life.” In March 2019, when Karen was visiting her seriously ill dad in hospital, a few of
the nurses commented on her shakes.
Sadly, her father passed away three months later, by which time the tremors were affecting her feet, legs and arms.
Karen, of Spittal, Rutherglen, was referred to neurology at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.
On calling her name from the other end of the corridor, the consultant closely watched as Karen walked towards him.
“The minute I came in and sat down, he said: ‘Mrs McBride, I’m 99 per cent sure you have Parkinson’s disease,’” remembers Karen.
“I’d gone there on my own. My husband was at work. I couldn’t believe it. I did not register anything else he said after that.”
In January 2020, Karen had an MRI scan. And, on March 16 that year – a week before the country went into lockdown – the Parkinson’s diagnosis was confirmed.
“There’s no good time to get a Parkinson’s diagnosis – but that timing couldn’t have been any worse,” said Karen, who had always considered it to be a condition that affected frail, elderly people – not a 49-year-old mum with a 12-year-old son.
“I started thinking about my future,” remembers Karen. “I did not want my husband to be the one to clean the dribble off my chin.”
Learning that she’d be assigned a Parkinson’s nurse, Karen was advised that the side effects of medication commonly used to treat the condition can lead to impulse control disorders, such as an increased risk of addiction to gambling, shopping and binge eating.
Due to the pandemic, Karen didn’t receive her first course of medication until June 2020 – and, almost three years later, it’s been a source of great relief that she has experienced no side effects.
Consultations that followed were conducted by Zoom, during which doctors noted typical Parkinson’s traits such as the shuffling of her feet, the reduced movement in her arms, a reduced blinking rate and facial masking cause by the inability of the muscles in her face to relax.
It was, for Karen, “like the pieces of a puzzle, all coming together.”
Because of her level of absenteeism, and her tendency to have trips, slips and falls, Karen’s employer concluded they could not guarantee her safety at work and paid her off.
In the summer of 2021, Karen began to reach out by Zoom to other people in the Lanarkshire and Glasgow area who were living with Parkinson’s – including members of the Glasgow Young Onset Group.
And it was then she learned about a new Parkinson’s walking football session beginning on Thursday mornings at Toryglen.
Having received training from Parkinson’s UK, the coaches knew and understood everyone’s limitations by the time the 10-week pilot sessions kicked off in October 2021.
“Right away, I thought this is really good,” said Karen, now aged 52. “It was giving me a great chance to meet other people face-to-face. And there were not a lot of things going on where you didn’t have to wear a mask.”
When, in January last year the idea was mooted for a fully-established Parkinson’s walking football team, Karen and three other women were the first to sign up.
Now, the Thursday morning sessions attract around 15 players, whose team is supported by the Celtic FC Foundation, Parkinson’s UK and Glasgow Life.
Last September, just weeks after the death of her 74-year-old mum, Agnes Herrity, Celtic board member Eric Riley – who is living with Parkinson’s – invited Karen and Andrew, who is now aged 15, to Celtic Park as match day VIP guests.
Not only did Celtic fan Andrew get to meet a number of players, including Jota and Anthony Ralston, he also shook hands in the hospitality suite with one of the team’s greatest supporters, Sir Rod
Stewart. As well as walking football, Karen also participates in seated yoga classes at the Phoenix Community Centre in Easterhouse, and attends the weekly Parkinson’s Table Tennis Club in Drumchapel.
Although she reaps enormous benefits from her new-found love of gentle exercise, Karen admits there are some days when the anxiety and depression associated with her condition take over and she doesn’t want to leave the house. Gradually, episodes in which she’d lose control of her bladder became more frequent, and she began taking a change of clothes wherever she went.
That, she says, is “the hidden bit that people don’t see.”
Her medication doses were steadily increased, while husband Kevin synced her phone and watch to ensure she receives alerts when it’s time to take her tablets.
As well as his job as an administrator with Glasgow City Council, Kevin is Karen’s devoted carer, preparing her boxes of pills, cooking the evening meal so that they can all sit down as a family, and washing his wife’s hair – a seemingly simple task she can’t perform due to lack of movement in her left hand.
Even the weather affects her tremors, which become more pronounced if she’s hot or cold, if she’s nervous or anxious.
She might have nothing stronger than a glass of cola in her hand but, due to the way she walks, people assume that she’s drunk.
Karen accepts that people will always judge – which is why she takes things with “a wee pinch of salt.”
“You have to see the positive, the funny side,” insists Karen.
“If I started to let it really get me down, I honestly don’t think I’d be here. I have been dealt a bad hand, but it doesn’t have to be doom and gloom all the time.”
But the tears well when she opens her heart about her worst fear: that something happens to her husband, Kevin, and her son is left to care for her.
She dearly wants RAF cadet Andrew to follow his dream of joining the Air Force.
Karen wants a future for her boy that will see him travelling the world, meeting someone special and settling down.
“I want him to have a life for him, not for me,” she said. “If something did happen to Kevin, where would that put me? In a care home? I would not want to entertain that thought.
“We want to set everything up for his future, not our future, by making sure he is financially stable and taken care of.”
Asked what her advice would be to someone who has recently received a diagnosis of young onset Parkinson’s, Karen said: “Find group of people who are in the same boat as you and reach out to them.
“There will be somebody there who will help you to talk about it, and you can all help each other.”
She added: “Parkinson’s has made me more inclined to try new things. If I am shaking, then I’m shaking. If you want to go on holiday or jump out of a plane, do it. Don’t put it off because you have Parkinson’s.
“Tomorrow is not promised. You have to live for just now.”
Don’t put things off. Tomorrow isn’t promised. You have to live for just now Karen McBride