Several recent posts to this list have been complaints, not
complaints about the list, but complaints about our common condition,
Parkinsons. The person complaining often sounds half-apologetic about his
or her condiion. Taken all in all this list has well over 1000 PWP in
various stages of affliction, from the trembling green recruit clutching
for any word of assurance that things won't really become as bad as rumor
has it, to the grizzled and battle weary veterans who know the truth
first-hand. And yet, the number of posts complaining about our situation,
bleak as it may be, are relatively few. Are we really that brave or
stoical?
We all know with cetainty that if we do complain we will be buried
under an avalanche of sympathetic replies, both public and personal. We
turn no one away. Yet personal physical complaints are sufficiently scarce
that I have left my self imposed silence to comment on the matter.
One of the important messages the list and its membership
continually reinforces is that there is life after diagnosis. The world
doesn't end with the bad news. As Dolly Parton sings (with Billy Dean)
"You got me over a heart ache tonight..." She's singing about a romantic
crisis, but we all could sing of this list and its members "You got me
through a hard time tonight, today, this week, ...."
The Brian Collins's, Camilla Flinterman's, Charlie Meyer's,
Margaret Tuchman's, and the many helpful Barbara's, to name a few, but not
at the cost of slighting any not named, have found a new avocation in
helping all of us.
The recent few complaints have concerned sleep or the lack thereof.
I personally wake up every two hours or less to take my personal sanitary
plumbing to the bathroom. If my bladder were better, however, my sleep
would be less restful than it is. I don't move or turn over in my sleep
and more than two hours in the same position (left side, right side, or
back) would cramp my muscles so that I might have difficulty getting my
plumbing to the bathroom in time. All things work together for good !?!
As for the other uses of personal plumbing: when my neurologist asked
me if I had any problems with my genitals, I said "no," except that they
don't work anymore. He smiled at my answer. By the way to pursue this to
its bitter end; my prostate is very small for a man my age, so the cause of
my problem can be laid entirely at Dr. Parkinson's door. I guess its nice
to know. End of personal confession.
My final words, for now, concern time. If there is any single symptom I
would call characteristic of my PD it is my altered perception of time.
Time just doesn't pass more slowly or more rapidly; it is just out of
control. "Hours creep. Days fly." My body is enslaved to a rigid pill
schedule which is not capable of comfortably regulating my symptoms. Does
anybody have any wisdom for me?
George Andes 63/15 and counting
