Partly due to Dad’s continued failing health, and partly due to the need for me to take a back seat for a while, I find myself once again traversing the now familiar route across Western Europe to visit family in the UK. This will be a solo trip. Jae is sunning herself in the Belgian Ardennes with Sophie and her family. Sandy is staying at home to care for Joey.
Although this is technically not a holiday, I’m under instructions from the company doctor to ‘do less’ for a while. Why am I under instructions from a company doctor at all? I could probably write an entire book on that subject. Indeed, I might do just that. For now, as this is merely a daily blog, I’ll stick to just the highlights. That said, strap in.
It would be an understatement to say that the past few months have been a wild rollercoaster. To do that statement justice, I need to provide context. For that, I need to go back about two and a half years. I was sitting on the couch with Sandy, mobile phone in hand, as usual, likely playing chess as I frequently do. I happened to mention casually to Sandy that I couldn’t seem to hold my phone completely still in my right hand. There was a barely perceptible tremor. Barely perceptible, but persistent. It was just a little odd, albeit not overly significant. I thought nothing of it, casting it aside in my mind and writing it off as a random everyday idiosyncrasy of the human body. I assumed it might be something as simple as low blood sugar or any of a dozen other rationalisations.
After some weeks, this minor tremor seemed to become more noticeable. I don’t know if it was more intense per se, but I was more acutely aware of it. Although it didn’t really interfere with daily life, my curiosity eventually got the better of me, and I booked myself in to see my GP. He wasn’t overly concerned. There were no other symptoms or markers that might raise further questions. However, out of an abundance of caution, he referred me to a neurologist.
Although my GP tried to reassure me, he didn’t rule anything out. The neurologist’s appointment took 6 weeks to come through. During that time, I began fearing the worst. It was an anxious time, but there was little I could do but sit it out and wait.
When I finally got in to see the neurologist, she made a range of observations as I moved my body and limbs in various ways, walked up and down her office, answered questions, and so on. The final verdict was something I’d not previously heard of—Essential Tremor. I didn’t really know what that meant, but she explained it’s a slowly progressing condition that deteriorates over many years, or even decades. “Ok, so it’s not Parkinson’s, then?” That was the burning, often unspoken, question I had been harbouring for the past couple of months. “No, I don’t see any other Parkinson’s indicators.” Phew! That was a relief. Alas, that relief was not to last.
Fast forward about a year to December of 2025, seven months ago. We had not long returned from a lengthy holiday to Florida with the family. That was made possible by me saving up my holiday time for almost a year so we could spend 4-5 weeks on a no-expense-spared holiday of a lifetime. It was the crowning glory of our family holiday opportunities. The kids are now both adults, and I felt this might be the last time we could truly enjoy a holiday as a family. As such, we made it a big one, and we made it count. One of the consequences of that decision was that I was truly in need of a break, for having foregone using any holiday time in the year leading up to it. The scale and intensity of the holiday itself also required a huge investment of time and energy to organise it. I wanted everything to be perfect, and researched every last aspect to within an inch of its life.
The Florida holiday was in October/November. By December, I was bearing the full weight of a range of stressors. I won’t list them all here, but suffice it to say I was under a ton of pressure. Now, I pride myself on my ability to handle stress well. Indeed, I tend to function better when under stress. The nature of our lives has made that a necessity. I thought everything was fine. I thought everything was under control. I was wrong.
One day at work, I was volunteering as a photographer for the company’s 6-weekly new starter induction day, as I’ve done several times before. HR entertains a group of all the new starters since the previous induction day, and that’s topped off with a photo shoot. At the end of the shoot, once everyone else had left, I happened to be chatting with one of the HR staff, casually mentioning all the issues I had been dealing with, including the tremor and a few other more serious maladies. Out of seemingly nowhere, and possibly triggered by the sudden realisation of just how much stress I was under, I was overcome with a wave of emotion. I had what I can only describe as a full mental breakdown. Kudos to the HR staff member. She was extremely empathetic and supportive. In fact, she insisted I go home and call in sick with mental health issues—possibly burnout.
I sought advice wherever I could, including from the HealthyLife coach, whose weight loss and lifestyle-improvement sessions I had been attending over the past year. Joyce and I get on well. In one of our 1:1 sessions, we had an honest exploration of all the issues I had been dealing with up to that point. Between issues with my degraded spine, reduced kidney function, sleep apnoea, worsening tremor, Sandy’s health care issues, my father being on death’s door, the ever-present stress of managing mental health issues for both kids, and now possible burnout, it suddenly seemed all too clear that something had to give. I resolved to call in sick with burnout.
Shortly after, I had a meeting with the company doctor. It didn’t take her long to come to a conclusion. I was indeed burnt out. In her medical opinion, I was unfit for work.
The entire burnout situation is a book in itself, but I’m still just outlining the context for where I am today, so I need to conclude that. Shortly after engaging with the company doctor, I was put onto a waiting list for some mental health treatment. The right-hand tremor was still getting worse, even some months after being off work. Why? With no obligations to my day job, aside from engaging with the company doctor and other health care providers, my overall stress load should have been lower. It wasn’t adding up. I went back to the neurologist.
When the neurologist heard the woes of my burnout, and somewhat supported by the speed of the onset of the tremor, she revised her diagnosis from Essential Tremor to
Functional Tremor. The upshot of whatever that meant was that the tremor was largely caused and sustained by my mental health issues—the burnout was responsible. The remedy for this was to address the underlying mental health issues. As such, I continued with seeking the appropriate mental health support.
Fortunately, I live in the Netherlands, where social welfare is of a high degree of standard. My existing health insurance covers this sort of thing. I was signed up for a burnout program from Phitaal, a reputable provider that everyone, including Joyce, my GP and the company doctor, highly recommended. Alas, after completing their lengthy induction process and being put onto their 12-16 week waiting list, I received a notification from them that they had filed for bankruptcy. Terrific!
A plan B was enacted, and I started burnout therapy with an alternative provider. Following the conclusion of their initial program, I pointed out that six months off work, with proper rest and mental health support, hadn’t touched the tremor. If anything, it had spread to my right foot.
I went back to my GP. He reiterated once again that there were no typical Parkinson’s indicators, but he supported my idea of getting a second opinion. Everyone in the Netherlands has that right, and the GP felt it was entirely appropriate in this situation. Since there is a specialist neurology department at the MUMC+ teaching hospital in Maastricht, I asked for a referral there. My GP suggested it would be best if my neurologist wrote the referral, so that’s what I arranged. Two weeks later, I had a consultation there and was sent for a brain scan.
A couple of weeks ago, I went back to the neurologist at MUMC+ to hear about the results from my brain scan. As was the case when we were initially awaiting the first neurologist appointment at my local hospital, all the possible worst-case scenarios ran rampant through our thoughts leading up to the consultation. That’s when it happened. He confirmed what Sandy and I had been anticipating, but hoping against. I have Tremor-dominant Parkinson’s disease. There are few worse phrases to hear from a doctor. Incurable degenerative disease is, alas, one of them. Now I’ve heard it, I cannot unhear it.
In truth, I think it’s still sinking in. That said, there’s an overwhelming sense of relief that the veil of uncertainty has been lifted. We now have a definitive diagnosis. The good news is it’s treatable, and treatment can start now. Maybe it’s because I tend to have an upbeat and positive outlook on life, but I feel there is a bizarre silver lining to be found here. Of all the variants of Parkinson’s, tremor-dominant Parkinson’s is the most favourable one to have, if you can consider it favourable at all. This type of Parkinson’s tends to be a slower-progressing variant, and it also tends to be limited more to physical symptoms, rather than cognitive symptoms. The neurologist in Maastricht assures me that cognitive decline, if it occurs at all, could take decades to manifest. It looks like I can hold onto my marbles for at least the foreseeable future. If I’m to find an upside to all of this, surely that has to be where I can find it.
Rather than start the new medication straight away, I have decided to wait until this UK trip is out of the way. The company doctor agreed with me that it would be best to wait until I return. That way, I’m not contending with possible side-effects or other issues relating to finding the right dosages while away from home and without access to my local neurologist.
I’ve evidently been living with this disease for at the very least the past couple of years, and possibly longer. It turns out the progressive loss of my sense of smell over the past decade, which I had chalked up to the sleep apnoea and years of CPAP therapy, is a typical pre-marker for Parkinson’s. The MUMC+ neurologist also tells me they see people with early Parkinson’s often presenting as burnout patients. It’s all starting to fall into place.
So, with that lengthy detour to provide context out of the way, let me carry on with the perhaps more mundane events of the day.
Over the past couple of days, I had been trying to 3D print a custom product for a client in the US. I’ll go into more detail in the coming days about the little 3D printing venture/hobby that has been keeping me busy for the past couple of months. For now, I’ll just note that it took several attempts to get this particular part to print correctly. An unfortunate but inherent problem with 3D printing is that some prints simply fail, and not always for obvious reasons. Anyway, I had been somewhat rushed with getting this thing printed so I could package it up for shipping before I left for the UK. Fortunately, I managed to do so, but it was close, which did nothing to relieve my stress levels ahead of the trip.
Another problem I had to tend to in preparation for this trip was reinstalling this laptop. It was previously configured as a work laptop, meaning I had to live with certain restrictions imposed by my company’s IT security policy. This had never been a problem until recently. Their security policies only resulted in a more secure environment, which I benefited from. A recent policy shift, however, suddenly restricted access to any AI tools. One of the casualties was Grammarly, a tool I use for spelling and grammar checking. I’ve come to rely on this, and the sudden inability to use it represented the crossing of a line I wasn’t willing to accept. Reinstalling the system back to a purely personal configuration does mean I can no longer use this laptop for work purposes, but that just means I have to continue with the work-issued laptop instead—not a huge problem in the grand scheme of things.
Today was going to entail a good 6-7 hours of driving, so I made an early start and resolved to be out of the door by 7 am. I was able to achieve that largely because I did the lion’s share of my organising and packing yesterday already. With the last few items packed into the car, I grabbed my pre-prepared sandwiches and bid Joey and Sandy farewell.
The 3-hour drive to Dunkirk was uneventful. There were no traffic jams, and I didn’t find it necessary to stop on the way. I cleared immigration and customs without fanfare. Jacky had asked me to pick up a sleeve of cigarettes for her from the duty-free shop, which I did.
After boarding, I quickly found myself sitting at our favourite table—one with a power outlet into which I plugged my power strip, feeding my laptop and phone chargers. I spent my time on the 2-hour crossing writing up much of this blog.
Despite my checklist and meticulous pre-departure organisation, I did manage to forget to pick up my wallet before getting into the car this morning, much to Sandy’s chagrin when that penny dropped for her right around the time I arrived in Dunkirk. That meant I had no bank card, credit card, driver’s license or my car’s registration card (kenteken). Oops! I can live without the bank card or credit card, since I can pay for things using my iPhone. I’ve never been asked for my driver’s license, so there was likely little chance I would need that. However, the last time I travelled to the UK, I was stopped at the customs checkpoint and asked for my car’s registration documentation—the kenteken. I had my wallet with me that time, and duly flashed the card. It was enough to satisfy them then, and I was quickly on my way. To be fair, that was the first time I had been challenged to show that card, despite the countless times I’ve made this journey. Just in case I was stopped again this time, I had Sandy send me photos of the kenteken card. In the event, I was waved through, so that was a bullet dodged.
From Dover, it was about a ninety-minute drive to my hometown of South Ockendon. Paul had asked me to pick up a few provisions, so I stopped at a nearby supermarket and picked up some bread, milk, etc. I was halfway from the supermarket to Dad’s house before I noticed something tucked under my windscreen wiper. It was a parking fine. Since there is no way for the UK authorities to trace the car back to me, I gave it no further thought—though if I’m honest, that’s a moral shortcut I still haven’t quite squared with myself, and the same goes for the one I picked up on the previous trip.
Dad was looking surprisingly well. I had feared further deterioration. It’s true that he is now completely bedbound, and totally dependent on Paul and the social workers who tend to him several times a day, but his faculties still seem largely intact. This was a big relief for me. It means I can relax a bit more. It no longer feels like ‘the last opportunity’, which is what I’ve been continually fearing in recent months.
I spent the afternoon catching up with Dad and Paul. As luck would have it, a few relatives happened to pop in to see him today, so it was a lot busier in the house than it normally would have been. I took advantage of the opportunity to take Paul out to a nearby Tesco to load up a trolley full of food and other essentials. We try to do this whenever we are here, and it’s always welcomed and appreciated. Living at a distance often leaves me with a sense of helpless inadequacy, so being able to contribute on occasions like this does the world of good for us as it does for Dad and Paul.
After dinner, and a few video conference calls with various family members, Dad was clearly tiring. I decided the time was right to get back into the car and to make my way to Stevenage, where I had arranged to spend the night with Jacky and Ella.
The drive up to Stevenage was just as uneventful as the earlier trips of the day. Jacky was her usual cantankerous and sarcastic self, which I really love about her. Despite the stifling mid-thirties heat today, it was a good day overall. Tomorrow I will drive to central Wales to spend some time with my eldest brother, John, and his long-term partner, Lisa.
A refreshingly cold shower was just about the perfect way to round out the day.