March 23/16

My Parkinson’s has been acting strangely again, at least strangely for me.  I have been taking my pills on time, no part of my body feels in any way unwell, but I have still experienced a loss of balance and poor walking.  For example, I take my first pill of the day at 7:00 am, I go back to bed for about an hour – for the pills to work – then get up, have breakfast and go, to the Community Centre for a work-out.  In the weight-room I do all the regular stuff; treadmill, stationary bicycle, stretches on the mat and then some weights with no problem.  My reward to all this activity is usually a stop at Tim Hortons for a coffee and a plain donut (I’m trying to gain a bit of weight.) and I am still feeling ok.

At 11:00 am I have my second set of pills and still feel well.  Today I worked for a short while on a project in the workshop and suddenly felt a severe loss of balance.  I left the room and went upstairs hanging on to the walls and door frames.  Jan escorted me up to our spare bedroom where I lay down and rested for a half hour or so.  When I got up I felt normal again and am continuing on with my day.

My suspicion is that at least sometimes going four hours between pills is a bit too long.  The new pills take time to start working and during this period my body reverts back to some Parkinson’s symptoms.  It is also possible when the pill period comes not too long after a meal (i.e. 7:00 pm) that protein consumed also slows down the pill’s usefulness.  I’ll discuss this with my doctor at my next appointment in a few weeks.  

I believe that I have mentioned my reading several books concerning “end of life” situations and problems with the loss of mental ability.  At 87, I don’t have forever to get things done, so I have paid for a burial agreement, which for me will be a cremation.  One of the items in the list of services and prices is the cost of the urn for the ashes.  Two friends do pottery and ceramics and my first thought was to see if either of them would like to make an urn.  My second thought, as I like and need projects to work on, was why not make a mahogany one myself.  I did some research and visited a funeral home to see wooden urns and their size and I have started making one in the workshop.  It is just a box, but I am trying to make it very carefully.  Is all of this morbid or economical or just cheap?

 

Mar.24:  Usually mornings are good, but this morning I got up and shuffled and stumbled around for most of an hour.  Fortunately things straightened out as I had a dental appointment at 10:00 this morning.  Late this afternoon I had another loss of balance – and lay down again for half an hour.  What with old age, Parkinson’s and having all my teeth removed over the last few months plus getting used to trying to eat with false teeth I don’t always feel very joyous.  (Avoid any or all of the above if possible.) 

March 11/16

 

Sorry for this long gap in communications, but nothing very special has been going on.  That in itself is probably the best sort of news.  In the main I feel well, that is, none of my parts are giving me much of a problem.  My only real difficulty has been, in spite of taking pills on time, several evenings over the past few weeks I have felt very restless internally.  It is hard to describe; I’m back shuffling, I don’t want to sit still, there is nothing I want to do and my insides seem to vibrate.  I know that’s not what is happening, but it feels that way.  And, I feel depressed and exhausted.  In doing a bit of research and talking to my pharmacist there is some suggestion that it is extra protein reacting with my Levocarbidopa drugs and interrupting or delaying their usefulness.  I am going to test it by having a porridge day.  I have porridge every morning and it has never given me any problems.  My test will be to eat it (with fruit if we have it) for all three meals and hopefully have no negative feelings.  I will report back.

 

My best days are when both my mind and body are busy.  There are a few activities that fill the “busy” category.  As I have mentioned in the past, I work-out at our local community centre three times a week.  The building was an old school and had some unused long book shelves in the main hall.  The management agreed and we now have a book exchange which gives me a small amount of work putting donated books in some order on the shelves.  We have had hundreds of donations.  There are no records kept and the motto is:  “Bring one, take one, read one” – in any order.  There are people using the building from day-care to Seniors, and it seems to be used by many members.

 

Another interest is writing, and I belong to a small group which meets once a month.  We draw a topic each month and produce a short story for the next gathering.  The “topic” word can be interpreted as you wish.  One of the earliest stories on this blog, “Dancing with Death” (a Parkinson’s story) was written last August.

 

Reading is also a big interest, although my speed has slowed.  Because of Parkinson’s and my other ailments I have been doing some reading topics concerning the end of life.  My most recent in this genre is “Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande, a doctor.  I recommend it.  My theory is, that the more you know about a topic, the easier it will be to deal with.  As an offshoot of all of this I have pre-paid for my eventual cremation, and as an offshoot of that I am making my own cremation “urn” out of mahogany.  All this took a bit of research and gave me another project to work on.  I’m not rushing this last part.

 

Some time ago I said that we had purchased a pill timer which also had compartments for pills.  If I remember correctly, I believe I also said that it had died (better words – “quit working”).  We ordered a different one from Amazon in the same price range – under $30.00.  It is working well and I even understand how to set it for my pill times.  The first one was beyond my comprehension.

 

There, did that make up for all the days I missed – or did anyone notice?