World Parkinson’s Day: patients climb mountain in Morocco: “We can do that too”

World Parkinson’s Day: patients climb mountain in Morocco: “We can do that too”

During ten days, twelve Parkinson’s patients went to the highest peaks of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, at more than 4000 meters high. The disease remains incurable, but the twelve want to show that life does not stop with the diagnosis. “You should not sit in a corner. Parkinson’s also affects relatively young, active people. The evolution of the condition can be slowed down, but it remains a battle anyway,” says climber and Parkinson’s patient Magda Gheyselen from Bruges.

superhuman

“We are fighting the disease and we also want to fight against the people who do not understand what it is all about,” says Veerle Lecompte from Torhout. Fabienne Ottevaere from Kortrijk is also one of the twelve patients who joined the climb. “It was a bit superhuman, but why did we want to join? To prove that you can still do a lot as a Parkinson’s patient, not that your life ends with the diagnosis.”

Everyone has clearly surpassed themselves on the journey, both the twelve participants and the people who accompany them. Jen Maes, neurologist AZ Delta: “We have climbed a mountain that is rarely climbed. A mountain that is known among climbers as a heavy mountain. What we did was quite unrealistic.”

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