Not all anniversaries are for celebrating!

I hate the New Year. I dislike it as much as I like Christmas. Christmas for all its modern tat and shallow commercialism has at its heart a message of hope. New Year is about the past and whereas Christmas has any number of beautiful Carols, the New Year has 'Auld Lang Syne'. As miserable a dirge as it's possible to imagine. A New Years' party with that as its end piece fills me with melancholy. NY isn't a celebration of hope, it's a roll call of the past.

Every New Year, the papers have a cheap little column noting those 'celebs' or 'worthies' who have died. All done with a small photo, and a short comment. But then NY has long been a time to remember the dead of the past year. No wonder everyone gets drunk. It's the best way of surviving this misery fest.

In Scotland, until relatively recently, New Year was the bigger festival, with Christmas in some parts being completely ignored. My Grandfather only started to get a Christmas break late on in his working life, but he always got the New Year.

Such are the joys of having a Reformed Church as your national church. The Church of Scotland and Cromwell would have got along famously. Both disapproved of Christmas. The Wee Free's still do.

Embarrassingly for years I misunderstood the meaning of 'Auld Land Syne', I thought the line was referring to some old guy, call Lang Syne. However, it actually means 'old long since'. 

No wonder it's so bloody miserable.

However, this time of the year is a time of a big anniversary for me. Early January I will be 'celebrating' the fourth anniversary of my diagnosis. Great........................................

When I was diagnosed the Consultant told me that I would have 10, maybe up to 15 good years, where my symptoms would be well managed and life would be relatively normal, A second Consultant echoed this. At the time I thought, well that's not so bad, plenty of time. 

Can't complain, mustn't grumble.

Well actually I can, life these days passes so fast that the 10 to 15 years are beginning to look nothing like as impressive as it did at the diagnosis. I have possibly already used up to over a third of my good time. It's gone too fast and frankly, I'm not happy.

At the end of this particular rainbow, lies not a pot of gold, but possible pain, dementia, stronger tremors, incontinence, constipation, slowness, freezing and, if I'm really lucky, hallucinations.

And a lot more besides and yes I know, I'm repeating myself with this list.

I was also told by the Consultant that after five years, I would be aware of little physical change in my symptoms.

Which I suppose so far is broadly correct, depending on what is meant by the word 'little'!

I'm slower in the morning than I was, my right arm feels numb over a greater length of it, I get the occasional dizziness now and I have been known to punch the wall in my sleep. I've not yet broken a finger, but I have bruised them!

This is a symptom I've not previously mentioned. Some Parkinson's patients can act out their dreams. So if you are playing football, you kick out. If you are boxing you hit out. If this starts becoming a problem the only solution for a couple is separate beds.

Either that or the partner risks a punch in the face. I wonder if anyone has made use of this 'opportunity'?!

Normally the body is paralyzed during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, which is when dreams occur. However, there are some conditions, with Parkinson's being one of them, where the off switch fails to work.

The individual may then act out their dreams, without any knowledge of doing so. 

Sleep can become a major issue for PD sufferers, Some will have difficulties getting to sleep, some will be subject to vivid and frightening dreams and some will have difficulties staying awake and alert during the day.

So all in all, I think my 4th Anniversary celebrations will be muted. There is precious little reason to be happy about it.

For those who want to be depressed, enjoy this version of Auld Lang Syne!

p.s. for those who don't know, the Wee Free's are Calvinist Protestants who left the Church of Scotland in 1843 because it wasn't miserable enough. On the positive side, they won't like Auld Lang Syne either, for them it reeks of frivolousness!