Some Background

I suppose this risks having the appearance of arrogance, (why would people care?), but I've decided to bore the world with my thoughts and beliefs, especially those about my condition. Of course in all likelihood the world will give out a huge yawn and ignore me, but here goes!

So what will this blog be about? Well, there are some things that piss me off, having Parkinson's, and its effect on my life is one of them. Politics, in this case, the mind-numbing banality of today's politicians, combined with their complete incompetence is another. I will also give my thoughts on Faith and when I need a bit of cheering up, drink!

I am going to avoid using certain overused and abused phrases and words, as they usually reflect the user's inability to come up with a novel thought of their own. So for example, I won't be using the word 'Woke' or 'Snowflake', or 'Nazi', 'Fascist' etc. All these words have been overused by morons and I want to try and avoid being one.

I hate the Guardian and Daily Mail equally.

Expect changes to blog format as I get used to things. And I aim to post weekly. But as my wife will tell you I'm full of good intentions............................!

Let's start (let's start at the very beginning), with Parkinson's and the surprisingly free and easy path to diagnosis.

When you get to my age, things start going wrong. Memory starts to fail, bones start to ache and sleep gets interrupted by trips to the toilet. So when you hurt your wrist turning the door handle, you don't immediately think "Ah Parkinson's", you are more likely to think, in the words of my Great Grandma "auld age disnae come by itself". Actually, you probably don't, you probably think "ouch that hurt, where's the paracetamol"? Which is what I did and then for the next three months I put up with the minor discomfort (the brave soldier that I am), believing that I had probably trapped a nerve. 

And that's the way things would probably have stayed, had my wife not intervened. Sick and tired of the moans and excuses when I was asked to do something that involved the use of the wrist, she booked me an appointment with my GP and on the day in question, kicked me out of the door and told me to go hither.

Now there's a real cow of a Doctor at my GP's, who on a previous visit came pretty close to accusing me of hypochondria, so I wasn't looking forward to the visit. But fortunately, I got a more sympathetic Doctor, who asked a few questions, got me to arm wrestle with her to test the strength of my wrist and then advised that I needed to see a neurologist.

Which for a wrist strain seemed a bit odd to me.

Anyway, after a quick briefing with the wife about the odd outcome with the GP, the wife took over again and having consulted with Aviva, my company's Private Health Insurance Provider, two weeks later I was unceremoniously kicked out of the car at the Hospital Steps by the wife and I tottered in for my next appointment. Now I had been a regular user of that hospital's facilities due to an issue I had had previously, so as I walked through the door it was all very friendly "nice to see you again", which when you think about it is an odd thing to be told by hospital staff, whilst others said "its been a while", well I thought not a bloody long enough "while" in my opinion.

Now my wife had wanted to join me in the consultation, but for work reasons, wasn't able to. By this stage, after her separate consultation with Dr Google, she was certain I had something serious probably Parkinson's. Being a know it all, I reassured her that if it was something serious, I would only be diagnosed after a series of tests lasting some weeks. She wasn't going to miss anything.

As with so many things I was wrong, After a bit of Jazz Hands with snappy fingers, drawing spirals, walking up and down and answering a few simple questions, I got an instant diagnosis;

"Ja, Ja, good news, you have Parkinson's"! Now she may not have said "good news" but she was clearly excited by the diagnosis, I had made her day.

"Really, I thought I had simply trapped a nerve"? 

This was dismissed with scorn "I am an expert in trapped nerves, this is not a trapped nerve I promise you"

She was clearly not to be denied her moment of triumph. Now believe it or not I didn't break down into tears, I had a bigger problem. My wife had a good friend who had recently died of Parkinson's after only three years post-diagnosis. I explained this to the Consultant.

"You are not to worry, you will have 10 to 15 good years, then maybe another 10 less good years, but they should be ok, then things go to rats"

Actually what she said was "things will get more difficult" but I knew what she meant. I did a quick add up in my head, 25 years, I would be 80! Things could be worse.

And that's it, that's all it took to be given a life-changing diagnosis. Frankly, I felt it was all a bit of a letdown, surely it had to be more rigorous than that? Well, actually not. There is no blood test, brain scan or objective measure that can definitely diagnose Parkinson's. So it's still all spirals and Jazz hands.

The wife burst into tears.