I spent a little longer than normal writing up yesterday’s blog. I think that was partly due to the subject matter, which I wanted to take my time with and really do justice to, but I’m also starting to suspect my typing proficiency is increasingly affected by my Parkinson’s symptoms. My right-hand tremor is quite pronounced and more persistent than before. My right leg is also trembling more frequently now—especially when I’m deep in concentration. Thumb-typing on my mobile phone is now extremely hit-and-miss, with more misses than hits. I can still get the words typed, but often only after numerous backspaces and retries and sometimes only with a lot of frustration. It’s taking longer each time to produce an error-free message—so much so that I’ve had several occasions where I’ve held off until reaching a full-sized keyboard. I’m not only a writer, but I’m a fully paid-up member of the grammar Police. As such, I am diligent in ensuring that whatever I type is grammatically and syntactically perfect each time—unlike these Gen Z folk who prefer to write in shorthand and without punctuation. My inherent need for perfection means I am labouring over the message longer than other mere mortals. I’ve made a note of these things to bring to the company doctor’s attention. As things currently stand, I see her again in a couple of weeks.
When I finally finished yesterday’s blog, I had Claude run through it as I normally do to catch any inconsistencies or awkward phrasing. Claude is brilliant with most things, but can be a bit iffy on recognising humour. It raised some flags regarding some of the humorous content. I normally decide for myself what advice to follow and what to just ignore and move on with. To err on the side of caution, I held off on releasing the blog, which would normally be the last thing I do before going to bed. Instead, I ran the relevant paragraphs involving humour past Paul first. He saw the funny side of it by the time he read it this morning, at which point I posted it. I did slip in a PS with a brief explanation, just in case anyone missed the humour.
Taking full advantage of the plump sausages I picked up at the butcher’s in Rugby yesterday, I whipped myself up a lovely cooked breakfast. Lisa emerged right as I was cracking some eggs into the frying pan, so I gave her fair warning. Lisa can’t stand the smell of eggs, so she pottered around the garden until I was done. John did point out that spraying the kitchen with air freshener is all part of the process of being done when it comes to cooking eggs here, after which Lisa reemerged.
Today was perfect weather for sitting in the garden and doing nothing. That afforded me a few moments to reflect on a few things from the past couple of days. A curious thing happened to me at the butcher yesterday. When it was my turn to be served, a very lovely woman took care of me. In fact, it was a joy to be served by her. She seemed almost excessively polite and deliberate about her words. In the moment, I just chalked that up to traditional British politeness. When she handed me my bag of chops and steaks, she did so deliberately with both hands, ensuring she didn’t release the bag until I had my hands around it, adding, “Would you like me to help you take that to your car?” I politely declined with a smile and took my leave. As I walked to the car, I pondered why she was being just a tad over-the-top with her politeness. That could simply be her way—her mannerisms. It reminded me of how I’ve seen pensioners treated in shops, where the person serving them is a bit more precise and louder in their speech, as though to accommodate the pensioner’s assumed hearing loss or dementia. Is that how she perceived me? As a pensioner who needed more care and attention than an otherwise more able shopper? It made me wonder whether I am radiating signals that are being picked up on. Could it be that my tremors, which are now almost permanently impossible to ignore, are telling people ‘this person is less able than the next’? I’m really conflicted about what that says and means, if it’s indeed what’s happening. I certainly don’t feel like an older, frail, hard-of-hearing pensioner. I’m on the fence between enjoying the polite, respectful attention and being treated as though I am less able than I am. Hmmm. I really need to think about this some more.
This does, of course, provide an opportunity to dwell a little on Parkinson’s, and how it is affecting me. I’d be lying if I said there has been no change in the severity of my symptoms. I’ve been saying for many months consecutively that the physical tremors are worsening. I still think that’s true. It’s also true that it’s continuing to spread to the right side of my body. Superficially, I’ve only really considered the tremor to be the real issue, but I’m starting to think I’ve not been as honest with myself as I ought to be. I just asked Claude to go through my blogs to fish out observations related to Parkinson’s symptoms. The list was shockingly longer than I was expecting. It covers motor symptoms, gait, balance and stamina, and so on. Claude identified no fewer than 15 specific bulleted observations all directly attributed to Parkinson’s symptoms. There’s clearly a lot more going on than simply the right-hand tremor.
Claude’s review of my symptoms prompted me to send an update to my company doctor. I needed to message her anyway. Our next appointment is a few days before the next neurologist appointment, and I wanted to see if she would prefer to postpone our meeting until after the neurologist appointment. I took the opportunity to work in some feedback about how I was doing, how my rest and recuperation has been going, and the progression of the symptoms. She has previously said she wants to evaluate the effects of starting with the levodopa, and that still needs to happen.
I finally got around to working on my therapy homework assignment: Write a letter to your body. That was an interesting exercise, heavier than I had anticipated, and not without an emotional impact. I completed the task, but my subsequent review of what I came up with, and consideration of some additional angles I could have looked at it from, resulted in an emotional release that came out of nowhere. My therapist told me to allow that to happen and just sit with it in the moment, which I tried to do. I’ve no doubt this will be a rich vein of interesting psycho analysis at our next appointment. Truthfully, I’m actually looking forward to delving into that in a few days. I want to explore that further. If I were to make any predictions now, it would be that more emotions will surface in that discussion. I’m smart enough to recognise that emotional releases are therapeutic, so I’m not going in with any hesitation or resistance. If it’s good for me, then why not?
I’ve not had afternoon naps nearly so much here in the UK, but I was feeling lethargic enough to squeeze one in this afternoon. I was already roused when John knocked on my door to let me know they were heading to a nearby fishing lake to walk the dog. That sounded like an excellent idea, so I kicked myself into gear.
Much like the previous lake Lisa took me to last week, there’s little chance of accidentally stumbling into this beautiful, idyllic setting. You’d simply never find it if you didn’t already know it was here. There was nobody else present. The roughly liver-shaped lake, about 5-6 kilometres east of Llanwnog, not far from Newtown, is about 5 hectares (around 12 acres) in size. It’s surrounded by trees and nestled among several hills, offering stunning vistas in all directions. We walked most of its perimeter, commenting numerous times on the clearly abundant stock of large fish that periodically broke the calm water’s surface. It was another relaxing countryside interlude. We chatted, sat and told jokes, launched oysters onto the water’s surface (no, we didn’t know why there was an oyster shell there either), identified various trees, sometimes with the aid of my iPhone’s tree and plant identification features. I once again noted that my stamina was put to the test, even though there wasn’t a steep gradient and the stroll was gentle. I seem to be getting unexpectedly out of breath more frequently.
We left—although only after John had to double back to retrieve the dog lead inadvertently left by the lake—and meandered through more of the idyllic Welsh countryside. We did so at a slow pace, though that was largely because John kept stopping the car so he and Lisa could do their litter-picking thing.
We stopped to say hello to an elderly couple out for a stroll. That turned out to be the local vicar with a companion—maybe his wife. John attends periodic tea-and-cake mornings at the church just a few steps from the house in Llanwnog. John isn’t religious. He does, however, help out occasionally with things like mowing the church lawns, etc. Rural village life is often intertwined with parish life throughout Britain—even when there isn’t necessarily a religious connection. We also found ourselves trundling quietly behind a couple of people on horseback. John was careful not to drive too close to them. There wasn’t any room to overtake them, so narrow are the lanes around here. We had nowhere we needed to be and no time by which we needed to get there, so a few minutes of patience behind them didn’t interfere with our day.
Back at the house, it was still good sit-in-the-garden-and-do-nothing weather, so John and I parked ourselves by the back fence to admire the view. As if to belabour the point about there being nothing new to look at, we had a spontaneous and hilarious game of I Spy, with blatantly obvious answers.
“T”
“Tree”
“Correct”
“F”
“Field”
“Correct”
“H”
“Hill”
“Correct”
“S”
“Sheep”
“Correct”
“G”
“Grass”
“Correct”
We were soon in fits of laughter. It once again underscored the relaxing nature of this environment.
John wasn’t especially hungry for anything other than a bowl of cereal, so I fixed myself up with one of the jumbo-sized lamb chops I picked up from the butcher yesterday. I patted myself on the back for remembering to clean my dishes and the air fryer drawer. To do the job well, I had to empty the washing-up bowl of the dirty washing-up water John had left from a little earlier. I refilled it with hot, soapy water and thoroughly cleaned the tray, rack, etc. That did earn me some bonus points, in the form of a hilarious, feigned, theatrical surprise reaction from both John and Lisa, although I was immediately told off for throwing away the wastewater instead of using it to irrigate the garden and plants. It’s definitely a different way of living around here.
So I continue to try and keep up the pace of doing less, or nothing at all, here in Wales. The past few days in Essex were a change of pace, but things are reverting again. I am planning on being here for another 5 nights or so, at which point I will reluctantly bid John and Lisa a sad farewell. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, it has been a slow, reflective day. I still amaze myself that I’m filling pages of blog writing on the back of very little actually happening. I hope readers aren’t bored by my musings. I’m still enjoying writing them. If nothing else, it’s therapeutic for me.