Several months on.

 So, several months now since I last posted. It’s been a journey.

Rich had to stop those anti-depressants altogether, he’s now on one that agrees with him. He started to have hallucinations, imagining people were in the house. Got very frightening. 

At the same time my mum wasn’t well, and ended up in hospital for three weeks. At one time a doctor was preparing me for the possibility of her not making it. She’s back home with us, and apart from an early morning hospital dash a month ago, she is doing well.

Rich was given a tablet to help lengthen the energy times of of his Parkinson’s one. All was going well, until after six weeks, then he stared to get an upset tummy (to put it politely 🤦‍♀️) After having three weeks of that, he was taken off the new tablets, and now takes an extra Parkinson’s one, and that is helping.

We’ve joined a sports club, and have been part of a mature movers class for the last month. We’re really enjoying it. I’m finding that just having that 45mins concentrating just on myself very therapeutic. The classes have helped Rich as well, as with Parkinson’s, it’s important to move. Last week, we had a gym induction. The treadmill is not for Rich. He doesn’t have the co-ordination to keep up with it, he nearly walked himself off of the end of the conveyor belt 😱 In the new year, we might look into doing the aqua fit class.

My own health took a bit of a dive through all of the medication nightmare. Stress I think being the villain there. Ended up having a chest X-ray as I’d been experiencing pains in my left shoulder, and painful breathing. Also, my asthma inhaler strength has had to be increased. I’m on a high steroid one now, so trying to keep myself a lot calmer than I have been of late. That went out of the window a couple of weeks ago though, as I got unnecessarily stressed about prescriptions possibly not being ready in time, silly me.

I’m trying to incorporate a bit more well being into the day for both Rich and I. That includes turning the telly off early some evenings, and having a game of scrabble with Rich. We both love that game. I beat him of course 🤪 We’ve started a day by day journal that we write in in the evenings. We’ve only just started doing that, and of course I have my knitting. I’m a bit behind with that, but hoping to catch up soon. Rich enjoys doing crossword type puzzles and word puzzles. Hoping to encourage him to pick up a hobby. Before Parkinson’s, he enjoyed woodwork, he’s lost the enthusiasm for that at the moment, so I’m hoping he might take to something like whittling ?? He has started making a spoon, but hasn’t done anything with it for a long while.

Rich and I had an afternoon tea at the Bistro two of my daughters work at. It was lovely. Bought some home with us though as it was very filling. 

Continuing with REM

 Well, the new tablets Rich had prescribed for him didn’t work. If anything they made him worse. I rang through to the Parkinson’s help line as sleep has been getting less and less. Monday night, all Rich wanted to do was get out of bed every 10-15 minutes. I ended up not having any sleep from 1am onwards. Rich did manage to get back to sleep eventually, but my brain had decided to stay awake! Anyway, the Parkinson’s team got back to me and said to stop the new tablet. They are going to get back to his neurologist and get his advice, then contact me again with what he says. Last night wasn’t too bad a night. We both got some sleep last night which felt wonderful 😊

REM Disorder

 My night times are non existent at the moment. I have had minimal sleep now for nearly two weeks. Rich’s REM has escalated. He was prescribed new meds, that should help, but they seem to have made it worse. He goes off to sleep fine for an hour or two, then he’s waking up about every five minutes, getting out of bed, thinking he needs the toilet, or just not knowing why he’s getting out of bed. He gets restless and frustrated. I rang the Parkinson’s team and have booked a phone call, hopefully they will be able to help. Watch this space…..

So blessed

 One thing that is helping Rich, is walking the dog with me in the mornings. She can’t go too far as her back legs aren’t brilliant, she will be 10 this year.

We are so blessed where we live. We have a sort of back to front house in that our main garden is in the front, and that backs on to a nice sized recreation ground. Also, we don’t have to go far from our front gate to be amongst nature. 

We have a brook not far from our house, that runs down into the town, that can be followed by foot. We can be in our little town, walking along the brook in about 10mins, taking a slower walk. By the brook is a pond. The brook, and pond have ducks on it, and moor hens. Sometimes a swan turns up, and at times a heron. I’ve also, once or twice seen a flash of bright turquoise as a kingfisher shoots by.

Up until recently, Rich had lost interest in the nature around him, since he’s had his meds tweaked, that interest has come back. A few weeks back, he pointed out a wren that was perched on a bush by the pond, and now comments on the bird life and their chirping loads. It’s so lovely to see him interacting with nature once more.

A few weeks ago, around the pond there were some lovely snowdrops, now the daffodils are flowering, and I have to be honest, I love daffies. They are such a happy flower, and I can’t help smiling when I see them.

On our dog walk this morning we saw a lot of blackbirds and wood-pigeons as well as the usual ducks and moor hens. Also, flying around, or should I say soaring, was a red kite. Always lovely to see them. Sometimes they fly so low, you can see the beautiful markings under their wings. We often see robins as well. Some seem to be un-afraid of humans and will just sit on the branch letting us have a good stare at it 😊

One thing that has helped Rich by coming out walking in the mornings is his walking has improved. His strides are bigger. He can’t walk over fast, but his speed has improved. And another thing that I’ve noticed is, even though his antidepressants have been changed, and are helping enormously, going out daily, getting out amongst nature, has helped his well being loads 😊

2023

 2023 was a sad year. It was a lot for Rich to cope with. The anxieties that come along with Parkinson’s are difficult to cope with. Sometimes his days feel so dark. It was a year that we lost two close members of our family. First Rich’s brother passed away, then our brother-in-law, his sister’s husband five months later. Both victims to cancer. Two of the loveliest men ever. In amongst the sorrow though, days within losing Rich’s brother, we welcomed our 5th grandaughter into our family. 

That, I suppose, is life!! 

It was a year where we had to digest and process that how we envisioned our retirement wasn’t going to be. Rich had planned to semi retire, still working a couple of days a week. He wasn’t ready to fully retire. That wasn’t to be though. He was unable to work. His confidence was gone, and he felt very tired. Up to his diagnosis, his mobility was poor. We were very concerned. We’d been told that his problems were pointing towards a mental health disorder, and in a way, we were hoping it was. We both stuck our heads in the sand, not wanting a Parkinson’s diagnosis. The thought of that was frightening. Once diagnosed though, it wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong. We didn’t want this diagnosis, but when Rich lost his mobility, we were actually relieved to know what was going on, and, although we know there’s no cure, meds have given him back his mobility and a decent doable life. 

Along with little Olivia entering our lives in July of that year, another highlight, that took some of the sad sting out of 2023, was that in May of that year, Rich was able to walk his youngest daughter down the isle. Something at the beginning of that year, we didn’t think he was going to be able to do 😊