IN PRAISE OF THE PHYSIOS: LIVING WITH PARKINSON’S DISEASE

This is one man’s shaky view of life with PD and it’s true - in parts. And talking of parts, like a lot of patients of the NHS I find the service, like the curate’s egg, good in parts. Mostly good, but occasionally poor; at other times in between. And one area in which as a PD patient (albeit with urinary issues) I have benefited is from the Physiotherapy department of my local hospital.

There are three sub sections: speech, occupational, and the physical side eg movement and strength are very relevant with PD.

Speech therapy people picked up on my worry that my voice was fading and gave me a two week course of voice exercises, known as the Lee Silverman LOUD system. It’s fun and involves lots of AAAAAAAHING. It’s reassuring that the dog can now hear me calling, even if she takes no notice.

Occupational therapy listened to my usual moans and groans and in particular my concerns about the fatigue and demotivation that I suffer. Then took two minutes to find an article from the parkinsons.org.uk website headed ‘Fatigue and Parkinson’s’. It defines fatigue, looks at fatigue’s components and PD and its causes, treatments for fatigue and what you can do about it. Then they set about sorting out the problems I encounter.

Physiotherapy in a more fitness-related form has given me my PD Warrior circuit training which I love.

In all three sub sections of physiotherapy, I was asked with genuine concern what were my own concerns. Then these lovely people went away and came back with a plan for me and finally carried it out. Fantastic! A part of the NHS actively improving this old whinger’s standard of life!

MEANWHILE AT THE PUB

We talked, inter alia, about Donald Trump, passports and border controls, fish, Valencia, open markets and their decline, Portugal, Spain, General Franco, golf, Brexit, Ian Duncan Smith, bowel cancer testing, dislocated shoulders and George Osborne’s strike on the welfare budget.

Sadly one of our number (easily the most argumentative and unreasonable) is out in Thailand. So discussion passes rather quietly these days.

Out of the blue the bar manager says I look like Jason Bradbury, to which I naturally answer ‘whose he?’. Apparently he’s a TV presenter and children’s author, best known for the Gadget Show. The usual crowd at the bar were tickled pink and several requested my autograph. Haha, I said in a chilly voice.

ODD ADDRESSES

On the way to the hospital the bus stops at Gibbon Walk. Who names roads that people have to live in after Gibbons? I look out of the bus window and there are not only no gibbons, but no one walking like one either.