Christine shares her personal story about living with Essential Tremor

I have lived with Essential tremor for 16 years and at times find life difficult and very frustrating. My husband died the year I was diagnosed, which has forced me to cope alone with all the challenges that Essential Tremor throws up.  

This past week a new challenge was presented to me, and I struggled to overcome it, in fact I didn’t.  After changing my car recently, I was a due a refund of road tax on the car I sold.  DVLA, a Government Department who take payment for road tax on-line, refunded me by post with a cheque! As there are no banks of any kind near me, the only way I could deposit this was through the Bank’s app where I was required to insert details of the cheque amount and reference.  I then had to scan the cheque, front and back, with my phone.  This proved impossible for me and after a good 25 minutes or more, I gave up almost in tears and decided at that time “I was disabled”.  After visiting my Bank’s chat line and managing to chat with a human, he couldn’t assist as he basically said to take the cheque into any bank (I had already informed me that there are no banks near me).  I gave up.  

I have never felt like this before and have muddled through life, compensating for my symptoms alone or by asking for help from friends and family, although my family live miles away from me, so it is usually friends who give me assistance when required.  I resolved my problem the next day by asking my neighbour if she would scan the cheque for me.  She did this easily thankfully, but incidences like this confirm how difficult and stressful life is for someone with Essential Tremor, and living alone as I do makes things even more of a challenge.    

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