I have something to tell you …

‘You have Parkinson’s Disease.’ These words, once uttered, change everything. Even though many PWP already ‘know’, or at least have deep suspicions about what ails them, these words uttered by the representative of the medical world confer patienthood. It is these words that make you ill: it is these words which legitimise your symptoms; it is these words which stamp you irrevocably with the label ‘patient’. Words are transformative, and these words of diagnosis are poetry in the highest, purest sense: poetry is a word derived from the Greek poieo: to make.
And they say that words will never hurt you. Continue reading