My name is Michele Cunningham and I belong to the Eltham Centre. I noticed a problem with my balance about 6 years ago and initially thought it was age related. However, when it became more pronounced I sought medical help. It was difficult to describe; some doctors said it was vertigo although I constantly said that I felt disoriented not dizzy. It was most apparent in large shopping malls.<\/p>\n
Finally, in late 2013 I was diagnosed with a disorder called Cerebella Ataxia with Neuropathy and Vestibular Areflexia Syndrome (CANVAS.) I threw my walking stick into the cupboard (but not into the bin because I was told I would need it as the disease progresses) and took up Tai Chi and Qigong. That was 3\u00bd years ago and fortunately I\u2019m only just starting to use the stick on bad days.<\/p>\n
The disease is progressing and I can now only manage Levels 1 and 2 but I practice Qigong every day. My neurologist and physiotherapist are quite amazed at how much this is helping me, both physically and mentally. I try to walk as much as possible and no longer worry what people may think as I stagger along the footpath!<\/p>\n
Michele Cunningham<\/strong> \u2013 Eltham Centre<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My name is Michele Cunningham and I belong to the Eltham Centre. I noticed a problem with my balance about 6 years ago and initially thought it was age related. However, when it became more pronounced I sought medical help. It was difficult to describe; some doctors said it was vertigo although I constantly said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3045"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3048,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045\/revisions\/3048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrcsites.com.au\/ctc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}