BLOODY PARKINSON’S: HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

The first thing the specialist says when we see him for the 6 months catch up tends to be along the lines of ‘how are you?’. Which requires the answer ‘rubbish’. But for some reason I reply that ‘things are fine'.  In some ways they are.

Because 3 years since diagnosis I’m the same man, only in a worse place. I’m suffering from arm aching, illegible scripting, eyes dimming, muscles shrinking, smile vanishing, balance failing, shakers shaking, pills swallowing, fingers stiffening, self belief drooping, gait robotic, voice dulling, tiredness debilitating, pints spilling, bladder all over the place, no control of cuff links. Apparently you don’t die from PD, you die with PD. I guess it means that PD works best at wearing you down till there are no defences left.

I notice that I’m shaking on the right side in the cinema, pretty much throughout the films, even through La La Land (as good as advertised) and Manchester by the Sea (also great). My wife sits on my right side and tries to calm my right hand, but often to little avail

Meanwhile back with the professor, after we have discussed the state of play and I’ve had a thorough moan my wife asks about miracle cures – ie ‘any miracle cures, doc?’.... ‘nope, afraid not this week’. I paraphrase!

So we look for miracle cures closer to home and including the tabloid papers: ‘could blasting brain with soundwaves help control Parkinson’s?’. A recent article said the method could also help multiple schlerosis sufferers. The treatment has been concentrated on a small number of patients suffering essential tremor: a brain disorder that causes uncontrollable shaking, and affects 1 million people in the UK.

The Evening Standard headed a recent article on a cure for PD ‘doctors inject stem cells into man’s brain in hope of Parkinson’s breakthrough’. This has apparently happened in Australia where doctors have injected neural stem cells into a patient. The operation aims to replace lost dopamine which is a transmitter in the brain which is lost with the onset of PD. As usual, we can only wait and see.

While I wait for a miracle cure I am also in search of the perfect pint – a search that never ends and which is not, it seems, restricted by good old PD. And meanwhile, pub discussion ranges from Trump to Farage to May to Gove to Fox to Davis to Bojo. For we remainers it’s still amazing that 6 months from the referendum we finally put the lunatics in charge of the asylum!