9 August 2006

I think today counts pretty much as a bad day. Well, not today specifically, but the last 24 hours. The reason is clear, and I only mention it as a record to myself of one of two things: my realisation that something gruesome has occurred, or a lesson not to dwell on worst-case scenarios without establishing that the worst case has happened.

So, I have been dealing for some weeks now with the tiredness in my legs, and it’s a couple of weeks since I saw the GP and he leaned back in his chair and declared that he didn’t know what might be causing it, and sent me off for a bunch of blood tests. Not having heard anything, I’ll phone the surgery today and find out the results – which I expect not to show anything interesting. The reason I expect that is quite simple. I have sort of figured out what I might have, and I don’t think the tests he sent me for would find it (and if it did, I’d have been contacted by now). And it’s not good.

There was a report on the radio yesterday that rhinitis is an indicator for Parkinson’s Disease, with the suggestion that the inflammation is somehow connected. I may have had rhinitis – well I have some ongoing problem with my nose at least - for a couple of years or more now, so it made me think. I then went and looked up symptoms for Parkinson’s and was pretty saddened by what I found. One of the things is slowness of movement when you start moving, which I definitely have, loss of balance, tick, muscle pain or cramps, tick, clumsiness, tick, tiredness, tick, loss of sense of smell, tick, most commonly affects over 40s, tick. I know, logically, that there are probably all manner of things that could cause those symptoms, but I have a nasty feeling it might be true, like a feeling of impending doom, a dark cloud hanging over my head.

This morning as I was exiting the DLR, going down the granite steps, I tripped and just caught the hand rail so I didn’t land flat on my face. I think I should get used to the fact that I can’t go anywhere in a hurry right now. That’s going to piss me off in a major way since my life has always been in a hurry. Indeed, anytime I’m walking with a woman in heels (her, not me) I get asked to slow down.

I suppose the upside is that there are treatments, although the indications from what I read yesterday were that relief of symptoms is for between 2 and 10 years, after which is stops helping – so that would give me until my mid 50s. Not a great deal of time. But on a more positive note, new drugs come along all the time and make extraordinary differences, and I’m living in one of the best places in the world to get sick. So I guess I ought to be a bit more positive. If I get the diagnosis, and get the drugs, and they have the effect it suggests, even in the short to medium term, there is perhaps still time to run a marathon, climb the pyramids, get into indoor climbing properly.

And then this afternoon I phoned the surgery, and the tests showed nothing. So it is perhaps as I suspect. The only way to find out us to go and see the GP, and get referred to a rheumatologist. Appointment made for Weds morning.

So that’s it for today. My thoughts at the beginning of what may (but I remain cautiously optimistic – since I am at heart an optimistic realist - may not) be quite an ordeal.