DEALING WITH THE JEREMIAHS

I just noticed that my initials (PD for Peter Duncan) should have warned me to be aware of the threat of PD.  It can’t be chance surely that I’ve got it after such a powerful sign?  And in case you are wondering about the Duncan bit, it’s supposed to be from a short break my parents had in Scotland, immediately after the war.

One of my specialists said the incidence of PD is significantly higher for men and non-smokers; so at last perhaps the toast has fallen marmalade side up for the poor old smokers?

But the subject I’d really like to air this time is the multitude of miserable souls who seem to assume that PD makes you gloomy. Admittedly if you read my previous blogs you could get the impression that I’m a bit of a glass completely empty and in the dishwasher rather than an even partially full sort of  guy. But nothing could be further from the truth. While the real moaning Jeremiahs are the friends and neighbours who accidentally bring me down.

I’m sure their heart is in the right place when they stop me in the supermarket and say something like ‘cheer up, worse things happen at sea’ as I shuffle round unsmilingly staring at the floor tiles.

Or the neighbour down our road who shouts cheerily ‘how’re the shakes?’ as I walk past not shaking until he starts me off.

Or what about the optician who I bumped into at the local hospital who asked me how my eyesight was progressing as, in his professional opinion, I had to look for deterioration in the face of PD.

It’s meant a new strategy for me: when asked how I am, the answer is ‘fine’ because mostly I am fine – just sometimes I’m less fine than I could be.  The two words ‘I’m fine’ seem to deflect me from moaning and the other party from turgid analysis of my moods and physical shape.

Friends sent me an interesting recent article from the Daily Telegraph by Jon Palfreman (who some years ago had reported on the condition for the Horizon programme and written a book on it) entitled ‘Planning to prosper with Parkinson’s’ was full of hope at least at first sight.  Jon was diagnosed with PD in 2011 and reports his reactions as secretive, in denial, isolationist, scared of the future and of who he might become.  He impressed me because I recognise all of those factors in myself, including all the things from which I hide.

Over time the author got more and more interested in delving into PD and opened his mind to the current state of play and to the future.  Partly because he wanted to understand his condition and partly because we live in a world that by 2050 will have 1.5 billion elderly people - 16% of the population - at particular risk of brain disease.

Jon reached out to PD sufferers (who he calls Parkies: not a name I’d favour!), and began to meet people who challenged the disease in all sorts of ways, famous and not so famous.  He found anomalies such as sufferers who could not walk but could run or ice skate.  Concluding that the brain is an awesomely resilient organ, he hopes that Parkinson’s is perhaps a pathfinder to making sense of and influencing the brain in a range of ways.

Jon Palfreman’s book is called ‘Brain Storms’ published by Rider: so no magic wand but hope nevertheless. I’ve already written about giving my brain away twice – good luck with that.....