Reality bites!

What a funny old day. I’m writing this primarily to document the weird health-related stuff so I can keep track of what is going on with me. It’s so easy to blame everything on Parkinson’s… I mean anything brain-related must be Parkinson’s, right?! My Parkinson’s nurse told me that the symptoms I’m experiencing are not necessarily a sign that my Parkinson’s is progressing, but equally, they could be. As I experience different things I become more and more convinced it is progressing. I wish they would just tell you. I want to know!! I think that’s probably why I’m subconsciously future proofing my entire life. Getting stuff done while I can. I hate that my life has come to that at 48 but at least I can still get some stuff done. My ongoing issue with my right leg is yet to be properly addressed. My GP won’t adjust my medication until they get a letter from my Parkinson’s nurse…. And that generally takes around 3 weeks. It’s Ok, it’s not as though I’m in pain or anything… I’m beginning to wish I’d just opted for the pain meds but gabapentin or pregabalin are not your average pain meds and are not high on my list of meds I want to take. Have you seen the side effects of those drugs?! So yeah, I’m dragging my foot again, the dystonia is agony, and yeah you can hear me coming… my walk is distinctive. I’ve been told it’s something that can be managed but not fixed. Great.

Today’s new symptom was a little bit different. Something I have never experienced before, and to be honest, it frightened Mark and I… is this what I’ve got to look forward to?! Anyone who has me as a friend on Facebook would see that I’ve been fairly active on there today. Lazy day off with time for a bit of photography and a bit of poetry writing. So I wrote a post about random acts of kindness and wrote the poem attached to that post at the same time. It was not pre prepared. I then got on with my day and pegged some washing on the line. I came back to my post and read the comments and then went to put another load of washing in the machine. When I next looked at that post, it had changed. The poem was not the poem I had written. It was completely different, longer. I wondered whether people were commenting on an old post maybe?! So I went on to my profile to see where my original post had gone and also to try to work out why they were commenting on an old one?! But there was only that one post. How had that happened? How had my poem changed?? I definitely hadn’t written the one in front of me… but there was no other post. Panicking just a little bit that I had finally totally lost the plot, I told Mark. Mark didn’t know what to think. Was I having delusions/hallucinations? My poem couldn’t possibly have changed so I must’ve written the one in front of me, but it was so unfamiliar! Not knowing what to think, I carried on with some housework. And the next time I looked at my post, the original poem was back! Relieved but also disturbed, I honestly didn’t know what to think. Delusions and hallucinations are a well known side effect of the drugs I take. Let’s face it, drugs that act on your brain have to have some sort of effect…. Bloody scary though. So easy to convince yourself that you are going mad. I hope it’s a one-off because I was tired or something but I suspect that it probably won’t be…. Not sure how that fits in with being a normal functioning working adult?! I know you’re all going to think it’s not that bad and you’ve all experienced something similar, and although the rational me would probably say the same thing… but this was different and scary.

Despite that little blip, I got on with my lazy day. The dog and I were out for ages while I messed with my camera, trying to get those elusive bird photos. I’m not sure why I’m so bird obsessed as I’m also particularly bird phobic! Obi ran round looking for the fox he’d spotted last week while I tried desperately to take photos with a dog poo bag in one hand and retractable lead and roll of poo bags in the other. The heron screeched loudly overhead as Obi disturbed his resting place again, but I’d stupidly replaced my lens for a large zoom lens and it couldn’t adapt quickly enough to my hurried demands marred by poo bags and a dog hurtling towards me at speed. I don’t know what he thinks he’ll gain from unbalancing me but it’s a regular game on our evening walks?! I did get some shots of the geese flying to their evening resting place, but that shot of them flying directly overhead remained elusive for another day…. And why did no one tell me about the hidden sprinklers on the golf course??? We cut across the golf course as a short cut home only to get an unceremonious soaking when the damn sprinklers turned themselves on in some secret random pattern. Just when you think you’re safe, another drenching from out of nowhere! It’s a good job that local people are used to seeing me in some strange predicaments… wet T-shirt competition for one?! Nothing usual about that!! As long as me shrieking my way across the golf course as the icy jets of water hit me is not on CCTV anywhere…. Even the dog was laughing at me!!