We were going to end with a bang, a good bang, but it wasn’t to be. We had planned to climb a 2000 metre mountain – Mt. Tegelberg, and I won’t bore you with the problems of finding how to walk it. We began climbing at the earliest time – 1000 hours and got to around 1000 metres when my atrial fibrillation gave me a scare. For those who don’t know, and in my case – I began to get double vision, then my mind would go hazy.

I avoid the common shuddering by hanging on to a tree because it can move you to funny places like the edge of a cliff. The feeling is one of uselessness because besides sitting down there is little I could do, and this combined with low blood pressure makes it dangerous. I could have gone on but it would have been irresponsible. So I sat for a little, took a pill called Meloxicam, then slowly made my way downwards, sitting or grabbing a tree if I got those strange feelings. 

I grabbed about 8 trees on the way down, very thankful for nature. I had made my mind up quite quickly not to go on but wished Corrie had, but she wouldn’t leave me and the way she was going left no doubt that she would have climbed her tallest mountain. But no going out on a high, except we had completed what we had set out to do, averaging over 20 kms daily for 30 days (about 660 kms).

So the result of my illness if you like, had nothing to do with PD., I was doing it easily also, and both of us had built up to a reasonable standard of fitness, apart from my back which causes me pain after I have walked hard for over 15 kms. The good news was that I had a shower when I got home under the best shower in Germany, a celebratory wine by the river and a lie down which gave me time to ponder my Parkinson’s progress and share that progress with you.

My main concern is that after 12 years of good fortune where medication and exercise has allowed me to have a fulfilling life, I am coming to a stage when I will have to make a decision about the next stage of my PD life. But before that happens, I have some short term minutiae to report on, and they are as follows. I have more “off” times, that is, time when my medication is not working and I experience life usually in a more slower way. But that is ok for me because I time it for those times of the day where I don’t need the meds so much.

These are times when, if I didn’t adjust my timetable, I would become frustrated and I avoid this feeling nearly always because I see it as just a waste of time and accept those things that may otherwise have caused it, such as: putting on my pressure stockings; not being able to do things as fast as I would like including the former; not being able to give someone the attention I think I would normally give; not being able to walk as fast as I would like; being unsteady; finding it hard to move much in bed. 

You can see from this list that just about all of my changes are about frustration. So all I have to do is accept them, thus denying frustration its chance to weave its binding and destructive web. But acceptance does not stop me from making changes to those things that may otherwise attempt to frustrate me. Then there is the slight tremble in my lips; a leaning to one side after I have walked a long way; a finger that locks and I can’t move it; and other little things that are of no consequence but, as with all of the above, I respect them and do what I can to change them for the better.

As I write this I am aware of all those who suffer much more than I do and I hope that the research taken out by Shakeitup and other research organisations will soon be able to make their lives better, and better still find a cure.

A reminder that I will continue posting but less often up until October 4.

Thank you for joining us on our adventure and hope it was worth it.

Hope life is good or as good as it can be

Will