Author: Michelle Terrill Heath

Teaching by demonstration was by far the most effective way. During Andy’s most disabled years, people looked to us to show them what they didn’t know about how to be with Andy. Andy and I were not always able to teach people as effortlessly as […]

I see now that it could not have been easy to be a handsome young man with only one leg. Bill often made it look easy because he chose to immediately embrace his pioneering role and become a teacher When something happens that sets a […]

Andy cannot talk in a voice but through Marco Polo technology it is like magic that he can be understood again. Marco Polo is an app that can be downloaded onto an I Phone or I Pad or computer. My sister in law, who lives […]

Inhale through left nostril, exhale through right nostril then inhale through right nostril and exhale through left nostril making a full circle. Something happens after receiving a hard blow in life and Andy no longer being able to talk was a hard blow. In the […]

Years have passed and we have grieved and now his silence has become another adventure to explore and we have experienced some success in our explorations. What changes in your life have you struggled with? There are tools to help people with voice challenges caused […]

The patient can and must tap into their own reserves of persistence, certainty and confidence that their words are valuable and worth fighting for. Talking often becomes harder with Parkinson’s disease. It takes an intrepid confidence not to submit to the isolation inherent in no […]

We purchased a large, motorized reclining chair.  It fit into our housetruck with about one inch to spare and loomed large in our tiny kitchen and living space of 64 square feet. During the hardest years, when Andy was disabled with Parkinson’s disease to the […]

Parkinson’s is a disease of ups and downs and continuous change. The trajectory of this disease does not go in only one direction. Living with Parkinson’s is never an easy experience.  Living well with Parkinson’s demands creative thinking and a hopeful spirit, both of which […]

 We are in our seventeenth year of Andy having this disease. Although he stopped practicing yoga for many years as his shaking became a hindrance, he has taken it up again. One of the successes we have experienced, while Andy lives with Parkinson’s Disease, is […]

Sometimes the people who stand with you in the hard times are not the ones you would have expected to be there. Letting go of people is really letting go of expectations about those people. I became attached to my two loving midwives and had […]