Sunday 25 October 2015

THAI BRIDES AND TAI CHI


My friend Tony has gone to Thailand for two and a half months to see his “Thai Bride” (note it’s in inverted commas).

He responded to my last blog or two as follows:

‘Hello each from a warm and pleasant isle with a cold beer at hand. I read in the Parkinson’s blog that no real decisions were made (in the pub) last week, so I'll put my two and a half Bhats-worth in.

Re the shaky hand when cooking: I have observed whilst here in Thailand that cooking with a wok could be the answer as it involves a lot of shaking and banging about without any spillage and no apparent harm done to the chef’.

(Tony speaks as a man of experience who has had a live frog hop in and out of his frying pan when preparing breakfast). 


I hope he captured it and soothed its sore feet with buttermilk, but I’m not sure.


Tony continues: ‘Re Thai wives, God knows how you ostensibly intelligent men got to this subject (is Bob thinking about it?). (Bob has an allotment, which explains a lot.)

Well that's all from a small warm island not far from the Equator’.

Tony wrote much more about Thai wives but even I could not argue that it related even indirectly or at a tangent to PD. However, I’m going to make a very shaky link to Tai Chi. Ahem.....

TAI CHI

But before I get back to PD I’d like to comment on supermarkets and plastic bags, as Waitrose ran out of bags for life three or four days after charging for bags came in. How long have they had to get ready for the new era? Why did I have to buy a hessian bag? Why did I use two old butcher’s bags from the car boot? Smelling of mince...now it’s a week later, and still short of bags for life!

So, got that off my chest, now what about Parkinson’s?

Two out of three specialists I’ve seen have suggested trying Tai Chi and as I was down in the dumps too at the time decided to give it a try. Indeed in the first 6 months from diagnosis with Parkinson’s I’d have tried anything.

If Thai brides look after all a chap’s other needs, so Tai Chi covers all of the mental and emotional and physical needs they, ie Thai girls, might miss.

Put crudely Tai Chi is a form of slo-mo martial arts. So you defend and attack and skim and repulse. Led by a great leader in Enid Gill we follow her graceful movements in our clumsy ways (ie me as some are more graceful than others*). What I get out of it is elements of balance, control, walking confidently, hip rotating, looking up, and so on and so forth. All the things a PD sufferer needs when he tends to walk like a Lego man and trip regularly .

I’ve been doing it, ie following Enid, for over a year now and I am not sure how or where I’m going to, but the journey is a load of fun.

Tai Ji as it says on my bit of paper comprises 24 postures including Repulse Monkey Right Hand, Play the Fiddle and Grasp the Birds Tail on the Left.

Here are 5 postures only one of which I have made up (no prizes):

· Strike ears with fist

· Needle at the bottom of the sea

· Two fish

· Play the fiddle

· Pull the pint of beer with perfect head 



Watch Calendar Girls for Helen Mirren’s own flexible versions of Tai Chi moves.

A more educated report on Tai Chi to follow – promise!

OTHER STUFF

Meanwhile I got myself swimming again and was welcomed back by the Naked Men in the pool changing room. Conversation included the iniquities of 1% savings rates and the rotten reaction of many Labour MPs to Jeremy Corbyn’s electoral victory.


In the pub conversation ranged from Thai lady girls (a variant of the Thai Bride topic), to Mourinho’s thought processes, to that old perennial, beer quality. Suggestions for new careers for me included Maracas player. Nuff said.

*I have failed at rock and roll and samba handicapped by PD, so Tai Chi seems the best default position available. But I am always open to suggestions.

Wednesday 14 October 2015

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.....



Saturday 10 October 2015

A PARKINSON DAY

Before getting gloomy about PD, I’d like to mention that I saw a small man dressed smartly in a suit in the supermarket knocking tins and packets off the top shelves with his umbrella and catching them in his basket. I nabbed the manager and suggested he recruited taller staff for such situations. He didn’t seem impressed. I bet that Aldi would have acted more positively!

Meanwhile we recently flew back from Spain on a budget flight and the Chief Stewardess announced the names of the crew, as they do. “I’m Kylie, this (next to her) is Wendy, and in the middle of the aircraft (pointing at a third crew member) it’s Tuesday”. I laughed but no one else did. As I exited the plane I said it was the funniest thing that had happened to me on a flight. The flight attendant didn’t see the funny side. Perhaps it’s a health and safety issue?

Enough of Tuesday.

What’s it like to have PD from a practical point of view? Well here’s a practical point of view.

Waking up. One of my main problems is waking up – I sleep so deeply that I cannot wake and routinely lie there half asleep, miserably gloom laden, waiting for my alarm, which I set to no purpose. The answer of course is to force myself out of bed and face the day, take the medicines and get moving by feeding the dog, having a pee, walking the dog, making a pot of tea and returning to bed with the Guardian.

Bathroom. Main problem is having to shave with a shaky right hand, so I shave and re-shave and re-shave, until I’m smoother than an apple skin. Am reluctant to try an electric razor as one of life’s minor pleasures is wet shaving.

Toilet. Shaky hands mean peeing over the right hand rim, adjusting angle so as to pee over the left rim, hence my use of the wet room for toilet activity. Wet rooms cover a multitude of sins. Incidentally a PD shake works well in shaking off the final drops.

Walking the dog. Too tired to walk far enough to tire the dog properly. Hence over use of the ball thrower which dog bit the head off. Just been on Amazon for a new one. But somebody should explain to the dog what the rules of the ball thrower are as she makes out not to know she has to return a ball before I can re-throw it. She can also master holding up to three balls at a time, the better to foil me. To hold more balls she has to swallow them and while she throws up odd items (cuff links are a favourite) I never found a tennis ball, or a plastic bag for that matter.

Throwing. Feeble.

Cooking. Shaking when pouring the kettle into the pot leads to minor scalding incidents.

Eating. Can’t get soup spoon to mouth. Dribble a bit.

Travel. Struggle to get into and out of smaller cars though still have driving licence. You would only notice me drumming my right hand and fingers on the steering wheel as if possessed by Led Zeppelin.

Sleep. What’s it like to go to bed and wake up with PD? Well you have to sleep soundly first and somehow the shakes vanish when you clear your mind of them, so there is no reason why you shouldn’t sleep well. Except for the hallucinations that the medicines seem to provoke and consequent screaming fits that wake my wife, but not me. And then there’s the hot sweats and stuff. And then the shaky tea cup.

To elaborate on sleeping, on a couple of recent camping expeditions I have struggled with sleeping on a Lilo where the slightest movement has left me lying down the gap between the Lilo belonging to my wife and the one I sleep on. Once down the gap between the two I simply cannot remount (that’s remounting the Lilo and not my wife), try as I might. Even in a conventional bed the PD problem is finding a comfortable place or position to sleep in. See the new film Everest for a similar dilemma.

Conversation with the Naked Men at the swimming pool focused on the coming of Jeremy Corbyn and lack of support from his fellow MPs. The quality of stipendiary magistrates was also covered.

Debate at the pub focused on beer quality and prices, the Chelsea Doctor and supporting a Thai Bride. No conclusions were reached