Parkinson's disease

When I was first diagnosed, I, I knew nothing, I, I had seen one person with Parkinson’s and that was a long time ago when I was a child. So I knew nothing about the disease. I read a little bit and I became a member of the local Parkinson’s Association. And I went to a couple of their meetings and what I saw there made me very depressed because people, I had mainly tremor and the people I saw there had, you know this, dyskinesia. I had a little bit of that but there were people with large involuntary movements and with rigidity, stiffness, they froze. And I have mainly the tremor which was in a way bad enough but also very lucky because my movements, my moving about was in no way hampered. So I stopped going to the meetings of the association although I’m an organising person, I, I felt that was too much. That was too depressing to see how that many people were, and also there were men with very helpful spouses and I thought ‘Oh my God to become so dependent on someone else. That’s heavy.’ So my feelings of acceptance was simply maybe the denial in another form.

I have to admit that I’m also concerned whilst I’m happy to go onto the web forum and communicate with people who’ve, with, who have had Parkinson’s for twenty years. I’m anxious about meeting people in the flesh, I don’t want to, I don’t want to see my future. My mother had a friend who had Parkinson’s so I’m sort of familiar with what Parkinson’s in old age is like but I’m not brave enough to confront what some people’s level of Parkinson’s is in people my own age. And I suppose that that’s part of me not trying to worry about the future.

I don’t know anything I deliberately don’t get to see I can’t my friend is into to the Parkinson’s disease society and she does lots with them and she tries to get me to go to the meetings and I won’t I can’t go, I can’t go because I don’t want to see people. I don’t want to be in a room with hundreds of people with it, I really don’t. I don’t mean that in a negative way. It’s just from my for me to get on in life I need just to be me and I don’t want to be faced with what I might become. That’s just the way I deal with and I don’t think that’s hiding myself away. I think that’s just the way I do deal with it whereas my friend get gets a lot of support from it and she benefits from it so that’s works for her. I think people have to do what’s right for them don’t they. So I have a couple we do have fund raising days where I get to meet a few people and that it’s okay. I don’t mind it in small doses but I just do it at my own level really. If I feel uncomfortable then I leave.

We knew there was a support group locally. But at the time my husband didn’t really feel, and I was the same really we sort of didn’t really feel we needed that at that time. And but having said that recently we went to a town recently where they’d got a Rotary Club event and there were lots of stalls and one of the stalls was the local Parkinson’s Disease, it was like a support group and they were doing a fundraiser. And I’d spoken to the, I think she’s the secretary for the area on the phone and she said, “Oh, you know, come along and say hello to us.” 

And I mentioned it to my husband, so we went along. And my husband was introduced to this gentleman who’s in the group and he’s had Parkinson’s for quite some time, and he said over the last few years, he said he had to give up work because of his symptoms but he was referred to a consultant who worked with him, sorted out some medication and he’s doing so well and just that half an hour’s conversation that my husband had with that chap did more than anything that he’s had probably in the last four years because he was just able to talk on a one-to-one basis with this chap. I sort of was looking round the stall and chatting to the ladies on the stall and he said afterwards how helpful that had been just to be able to talk to somebody, and he said sometimes it does take time to sort out the medication. That was really, really helpful, and it gave my husband encouragement to know there is help.

I went down to London to Parkinson’s Disease Society headquarters in Victoria about six, nine months ago because there’s like, there’s was a, there was a research establishment in there giving a lecture on stem cell research. And when I was down there, I met a few young people, and some of those young people hadn’t joined their local Parkinson’s Society because there were basically, mostly older people. They’d like to join the society if it was for, you know, a young person’s society, which I’d like to do. But there’s not one about. But having said that, the society here in [our area] is really good, very good.

 
Before the first time you went to that, how did you feel about going to it beforehand?

 
I felt that it wasn’t for me, it’s for older people. I had this vision of people in their, all being in wheelchairs, I was nicely surprised that I had trouble spotting in the room who were the carers and who had symptoms because they’re all on drugs, apart from one or two people in wheelchairs shaking away. I never envisaged that I would go back again but I’ve been going every since. I think it’s a really, really good idea.

Well I suppose I’ve got used to having it and think, ‘well it hasn’t progressed as rapidly as I feared over the last three years.’ So if there’s somebody in the Parkinson’s Disease Society branch support group that’s had it for twenty years and I can look at her and think, ‘oh well if that’s what she’s like after twenty years.’ And other people [who] have had it for a long time don’t seem to be quite as bad as you imagined. So in some way you’re trying to measure your own progression and the progression over the last three years is not quite as bad as I’d feared. So in many ways I’m a bit more optimistic than I was.

Okay but seeing other people helps in some ways?

In some ways, yes. It’s got pros and cons really. You can see what they’re like but you feel well you want to ask them how long they’ve been like that and you really want to be, asking them all the questions about how long they’ve had it and what patterns take developed since they were first diagnosed to see if there’s any parallel. But as I said before the symptoms are so individualistic that you really can’t draw too many conclusions from other people’s experience unlike lots of other diseases.

We ummed and ahed about joining the branch because I felt we were going to meet people who are in a worse condition than me and that’s what I was going to get like. But it is distressing to see them yes. I mean we have seen people in the five years we have been members, we have seen people go down hill and have left this planet.  But there is a lot of camaraderie that goes on and it’s nice to talk with other people about the condition and we enjoy belonging to the local branch of the Parkinson Society. And I would recommend to anybody else who gets the condition they do make the effort and join.

Because that would be a concern for people wouldn’t it?

 
Yes. We had a meeting last evening and one old chap had been sat there for a while and he had a job to get out of his chair. So I just went over help him get out of his chair and his wife said, “It is so nice to come to a meeting where people understand.”  And I hadn’t thought about it much, but I have thought about it since last night but yes people with the condition perhaps don’t get out very much and when they do go they like to go where their condition is understood.

You couldn’t keep me away now. I find them a great help, because you’re talking to fellow sufferers, you are comparing notes, you are enjoying yourself because you’re amongst people that can sympathise. We get some very good speakers.

 
We have a meeting every third, the last Wednesday in every month and we have a different speaker come each month. And there is always something of interest there for everybody. And, yes, it’s good to meet other people and compare notes. And although it affects people different, differently, when you come down to it everybody else has more or less been through the same period that you’re going through, except those that have only just been diagnosed or who only have it very, very slightly. 

So at this point I’m adjusting to being retired and keeping busy, trying to catch up on friends, travelling, picking up on hobbies and generally trying to support others as well by becoming eventually involved with the local support group. Although that was something I did with trepidation because, I think you have to deal with it yourself before you can support others. And even when you think you’ve dealt with it, you know, things can happen that, you know, can make you upset.

 
The first time that they rang it was, the most, well it was not supportive it was condescending, you know, it was, they were, it was as if they were get, they were showing me pity rather than anything else. And that’s, that’s easy, you know, easily done, but and I suppose I was sensitive as well. But I know that, you know, the person was doing it from the best intentions but it’s difficult to get the right balance because there was some who’d been going for years who wanted a raffle and tea at this certain time. And, but gradually things are changing and we’ve had different speakers and, you know, and the nurse is now in post and she’s lovely and, and I’ve been helping to devise a pack for newly diagnosed people.

We get together with other young people that have Parkinson’s Disease, just to talk and share experiences and just to be a support for each other. The biggest thing is that no matter how supportive your friends and family are, they never fully understand. And people with Parkinson’s know exactly what you’re going through and can always give help and support. And we help and support the carers too because they also need help.

 
It started with just three of us about two and a half years ago, and three of us went out to the pub for a chat and, you know, sort of talk about how we all were coping. And it’s just grown and grown and grown over the last couple of years and there’s now forty. And I’m actually the young onset representative and we organise social events, nothing formal. We just go out and have a good time and talk. As I said, talking is very, very important and the carers and partners and family and friends they can come along as well because they need support as well, especially your partner. It’s nice for them to talk to somebody as well and, you know, just find out how other people are coping. Yes, so it’s very beneficial.

From the PDS website, I managed to get in touch with a PDS branch and the nurse practitioner, which was very useful. So by making a few phone calls, I got some confidence with a few people in a similar position. I went along to the branch meeting. Met one or two other younger people in a similar situation and from there we formed a good social grouping and a contact group, which is very helpful in exchanging information on medication and other features and factors of the disease. And you find that there are many more people than you imagine who have got Parkinson’s disease. So recommend the support of the local branch.

 
Parkinson’s disease affects a lot of people in a lot of different ways, and it’s interesting to find out what range of knowledge there is. For example, I wasn’t initially put on medication and lots of people were talking about medication and I thought, I didn’t quite understand what was going on. Now I’m on medication, I take more interest in that sort of thing. But a lot of that is the experiences of the people around the patch. Nurse practitioners quite helpful, but I found the best source of information are other people with Parkinson’s disease.

And soon after I was diagnosed, I don’t know how I knew about it, a course for the Expert Patient Programme, and I went on this course locally at a local hospital, up the local hospice actually. And , it was good for me, it was sort of about learning to manage your symptoms and , it brought you into contact with other people with other conditions, not that it wasn’t all Parkinson’s. But you all had a common feeling really, you experience the same emotions. Have similar kinds of problems to encounter. And at the end of the six weeks, my tutors asked me if I’d like to train to be a tutor myself, which I did. And that gave me so much more confidence. Because I think being diagnosed you lose a lot of confidence. I certainly did.

And I went on this course for five days and I’ve been a tutor, Expert Patient Programme ever since and I’ve made a lot of friends and hopefully helped a lot of people. I like to think so. It gives me a buzz if I have. And we’ve also got a little group of Parkinson’s people that have come together because of our Parkinson Nurse and we meet up about every six weeks or so, either at my house or we go out for a meal or we do something. We have ten minutes talking about our problems and then we try to act normal.