My Parkinson's

My friend Kevin Kim recently had a stroke and wrote of the experience, prompting me to write of my experience with Parkinson's:

Interesting to hear about your experience typing since your stroke. It reminds me of my own experience since Parkinson's. I was never good at typing. But I could type, fairly slowly, and with mistakes. What differs now is that I sometimes find myself sitting at the typewriter, trying to recall how to type. I even imagine that I must know precisely how hitting a key on the keyboard gives the correct letter on the screen. I sometimes think that I must be able to visualize this process for the process to work. I wonder how a fixed keyboard can give variable sequences of letters. I sometimes even have to remind myself that the screen is where I need to look to read what I've written. I have to ask myself, "Okay, where am I? No, the keyboard isn't the place. Maybe I should look up. Oh, yeah, there it is, the screen." The worst is when I am afraid to type. I recall how finding the right key can take so long. That causes anxiety, which increases my fear. I feel the unbearable weight of 'willlessness' - if that's a word. I mentally shorten the sentence, but that doesn't help. I must just sit very still and persuade myself that the process is not really so hard. If I can get past that first step, I can type again . . . badly.

PS I should add that what I described is not my everyday experience but more my experience when I'm tired and writing to meet a deadline.