"I started out with just a very small tremor in my left hand and now I have difficulty typing. I have very slow movement when I'm not on my medication. It's a progressive disease, obviously, and it gets worse day by day and month by month. Physically, I am very different now than when I was healthy. It's a constant battle.
"There's some indications that there's a hereditary aspect, but also there's environmental cues that can trigger it."
"Basically what we often like to say is 'genetics will load the gun, environment will pull the trigger'," adds John Rice, chair of the Parkinson Society British Columbia, watching the start the tour.
"But we don't know what kind of convergence of elements requires someone to develop Parkinson's. It's a neurodegenerative disorder. There are a lot of theories, a lot of research, but we don't know exactly what causes it and that's one of the huge things we are doing in researching the disease is trying to pinpoint its sources."
With 86,000 Canadian dollars raised for the cause prior to this year's tour, bringing the amount to about 260,000 Canadian dollars over the past five years, such funds will go a long way in helping to raise awareness of Parkinson's, something which has a fairly low profile compared to other disease groups such as cancer and diabetes.
"There's no cure. Obliviously that's the big hope. They do think within three to five years they're very close and once they maybe find a cure for Parkinson's, all the brain disorders, Alzheimers and all that, can kind of all come together. We're hoping that what we're doing kind of does a little bit and brings awareness and raise some funds," Jablonski said.
"It really just hampers peoples' lives and a lot of people are ashamed of Parkinson's so they don't come out with it and they hide it. We're just trying to motivate and inspire people to get active and be active - a big part of it is keeping moving and keep the body motion going."
