Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer
“ you have a twenty year sentence, but you’re sixty five so it is not going to kill you “
Thanks heaps Doc.; good one!
I went home. I deliberately didn’t google my malady; I don’t want to become one of those people preoccupied with his (ill) health. But perhaps I was a bit scared too; the subplot of the novel I was reading was that the main character had just been diagnosed; just like me. Should he take the prescribed medication with all its potential side affects? How long will he be able to maintain his professional practice? I returned the book to the library unfinished.
I determined to be open about my condition. I didn’t want people tiptoeing around questioning others about my plight behind my back.
I had no problem coming to terms with my affliction. The specialist re-assured me it is not the result from anything I have done (or not done) in the past. It is not caused by overwork or over indulgence and is not related to injury of any sort. Plus I know “ there is no trial that may overtake you that is not common to man.
How had I not been able to read/ recognize my symptoms?
The quality of my voice sometimes changed; I sounded husky as if I had a cold. “ Dad, you need to drink more water!”
We were striding across Hampstead Heath. “ Grandad one of your arms is not swinging”
Sometimes in bed one of my legs would get (disconcertingly) tremulous and restless.
I had to conduct a funeral of a young man who hanged himself, the son of a friend.Tragic; all very sad. Hundreds of people there. All listening to me. I am the one expected to put Malcolm’s death into some context, profer some rationale, provide words of some hope and encouragement. Good reasons to be nervous but my nervousness communicated itself to the mourners, something that would not normally occur. The neurologist calls it “public scrutiny”.
I started the medication.
My walking gait, previously becoming increasingly disturbed and irregular, is now back to normal. My left hand tremors are still evident and stutters on the keyboard. Preaching is becoming problematical and I have curtailed it but not stopped altogether. I find it increasingly difficult to extemporize. The words which once flowed freely now can sometimes stumble over each other, confusing rather than clarifying. I compensate by scripting more than I used to. The result can be more of a lecture rather than an inspired message.
Parkinsons is a slowly progressive disease that affects an area of the brain that controls movement. The brain cells that produce the chemical called dopamine degenerate. The process commences long before symptoms become evident. There is no cure.
“ God is faithful and can be trusted to not let you be tried beyond your ability and strength of resistance to endure, but with the trial will always provide the way out, the means of escape to a landing place, that you may be capable and strong and powerful to patiently bear up under it “ 1 Corinthians 10:13 Amp
Monday February 4, 2013 5.30pm
Pains in the chest. The dinner table is laid. In bursts the paramedics. Shirt off, wires all over me. Three and six year olds see Grandad wheeled out on a trolley.
St Vincents Hospital: “you’ve had a heart attack”
Aah well