A thought-provoking video about living with early-onset Parkinson's disease. I published the video for the first time about a year ago. Thousands of new readers have now been added, from whom I don't want to withhold this small work of art.

Some of you will recognize your own hand as a metaphor for your illness.

The successful visual implementation comes from Brett Harvey, who spontaneously gave me the rights to create a German version.

By popular demand, you can now find my text below the video.

What you see here is a shot of my left hand from 2017.

Undoubtedly I have a fairly pronounced tremor. This involuntary movement has been intermittently affecting me for a few years now. I had no idea where it came from, so it took me another year to figure it out. I was just 37 years old when I was diagnosed with early-stage Parkinson's disease. Here are photos of my hand. Parkinson's is a progressive neurological disease and it affects the nerve cells in the brain, the very ones that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine are responsible.

The 3 main symptoms, but by no means all, are tremors, slowness of movement and muscle stiffness. Incidentally, anyone diagnosed with the disease before the age of 50 is considered young. There are no exact figures, but it is estimated that around 400.000 people in Germany suffer from Parkinson's disease. Of these 400.000 people, around 20.000 are under 50 years old. 20.000 people – I am one of 20.000.

 It's quite strange. I don't even know when my tremor started. At the beginning it was so small that I didn't notice it. I brushed it off, not really worried about it.

It didn't occur to me to have it checked. I guess I thought it would sort itself out somehow. Yeah, and then one day I was sitting at home looking at the footage I shot the day before.

This strange rattling and clattering could be heard constantly. It was clearly audible in everything I shot. Although I had no idea what was causing the noise, it was clear that I had to reshoot the footage. Then something strange happened. The noise didn't stop when the footage didn't play. Strange, I thought, the sound was in the room with me. I looked down and realized it was my hand that was on the keyboard. I shiver.

 I went to my family doctor. I'm one of those people who, whenever they go to the doctor, feels like they're making a fuss for nothing and that they're wasting everyone's time. It was just a quick checkup and he referred me to a specialist, a neurologist. In order to make a so-called clinical diagnosis, I had to have a series of tests carried out. That started with an MRI, which I don't like at all, a physical exam where you touch the fingers of your left hand with your thumb one at a time, blood tests - luckily I don't have a problem with needles - and then a DAT scan. The DAT scan was surprisingly relaxing compared to the MRI, but I had to get a slightly irradiated iodine injection because the iodine can represent my dopamine receptors in the brain.

The neurologist said that a healthy dopamine receptor looks like a little blob with a tail. If the receptor is unhealthy, the tail is missing. I feel a little uncomfortable showing this, but that doesn't matter. This is my brain,

and as you can see, the blob on the right has no tail. Now you need to know that the right side of your brain controls the left side of your body and vice versa. Now the neurologist has warned me that the tail on my left dopamine receptor looks weak and that's why my right side might be shaking at some point. What does “someday” mean in this context?

With Parkinson's disease, it is difficult for doctors and specialists to give an exact timeline of what will happen because - beware of the truism - every person is different. From everything I've read, there seems to be a consensus that with young sufferers you have about 10 good years from diagnosis to... until things get more difficult.

Ok, if I'm being honest, I don't have to hold jam often, but there are often times that I have to hold a camera. I'll have no choice but to think tactically about how to hold the camera.

When we record handheld, the results are not nearly as stable as they used to be. Normally, when I take photos, I focus with my left hand. And if I really concentrate, I can do this almost smoothly. But it's more difficult than it used to be, and I realize that at some point I'll have to stop photographing things myself.

In addition to the 3 main symptoms, there are a variety of other possible symptoms associated with Parkinson's. No two people are the same and they can have different symptoms. I'm currently getting my symptoms at a reasonable level Nutrition and sport quite well. Well, let's say with a relatively sensible diet and some exercise.

But I still have symptoms associated with my tremor.

I definitely have regular bouts of exhaustion. Then I get very, very tired. But strangely enough, I still have real problems sleeping. The only advantage is that I no longer need an alarm clock, but I would happily trade that for a single good night's sleep. I once read that you become more emotional and more prone to tears. I was sure: No, that won't happen to me.

And then it happened, exactly at an extremely inopportune moment. I showed a student a scene from “Jackie Chan's Police Story” and wanted to explain to him how incredibly brave it was that Jackie Chan, a stuntman, was willing to risk his life just to entertain us. Harmless, right? But I burst into tears on the spot, in front of a hundred students. Of course, I was wrong; I seem to cry more easily at certain things. I mean, I've always been a bit of a wimp and shed tears easily, but these days movies, books, TV, theater, music can really overwhelm me.

Sometimes I'm sad, that's true, and other times I'm scared. But fortunately these attacks also pass. I was telling my neurologist yesterday that some days I just want to sit around and feel sorry for myself, but other days I want to go out and carry on like I used to. I asked him what could be done and he said, “Maybe a little of both?”

I'm really lucky because I have a wonderful network of friends and family, family doctor and neurologist, and not forgetting my dog, who support me.

Basically, I don't feel any different than usual. But I have noticed that my life has gradually changed. They are tiny, incremental changes that mean little on their own. But all in all they are quite remarkable when I think about it.

Someone recently asked me if I thought Parkinson's had ruined my life. To be honest, I've never thought about it. I've always just tried to cope with it.

But no, Parkinson's didn't ruin my life, it changed it, yes. But I still feel like the same person, and for now I consider that a victory.

Jürgen Zender, Munich, October 202