Slept reasonably well until about 5am and then just dozed on and off for the next few hours. At 8am I decided to switch my device on, and then I got up and got dressed just before 9am.
My wife and I live in a little terraced cottage in Southrepps, Norfolk. I bought it as a project in 2011 – just as my Parkinson’s Disease began to progress more rapidly and drove me to seek medical advice. Over the next 4 years I completely stripped the house and had walls replastered, replaced ceilings, installed central heating, sanded floorboards, installed woodburning stove, replaced skirting boards and architraves, etc., etc. We moved into the cottage a year ago, having fallen in love with the cottage and the village, and deciding that we wanted to live in it rather than sell it on. There remains a lot of work to be done to finish the house off because my Parkinson’s slowed my progress down to a crawl, and then stole my motivation. Today my wife and I are discussing how we can make some more progress and make ourselves feel better about our home. We decide that we need to complete a room. Specifically, our bedroom. Our bedroom has a lot of junk stored in it which we have got used to walking around and ignoring. We decide to remove the various lengths of oak kitchen worktop offcuts that are leaning against (and covering up) a beautiful ornate cast iron fireplace, and store them in the spare bedroom. We also plan to move an old pine chest from the lounge and put it my wife’s side of the bed, so that she has some more storage space and hang some pictures on the wall, rather than having them stacked against the wardrobe. That leaves me to make a door for a cupboard and lay a piece of slate in front of the fireplace. If we break it down into a number of smaller tasks, I think I’ll be able to achieve it, one step at a time…
We take the dog for a walk and then plan the rest of the day. We are going to a barbecue at the house of one of my wife’s friends this afternoon, but the weather isn’t looking great (it was spitting rain when we walked the dog). Never mind, we will go in any case because we haven’t seen my wife’s friend for 6 months and it’ll be good to catch up.
Tremor in my left hand is bothersome today, and I’m thinking about increasing the voltage on that side today. After some umming and ahhing I decide to add another 0.1v on the left side (now 1.3v on the left, still 1.6v on the right) and see how it goes. At the first sign of any negative effects I will set it back down again. I have a little more dystonia in my right foot this afternoon, but dare not increase the voltage on the right. The dyskinesia in my right arm, which I thought had been stabilised, has increased in severity slightly. For the first time since my operation I spilt my drink last night when returning it to the table from my mouth, and then slopped my tea all over my nice clean rugby shirt this morning. SO annoyed with myself!
We go to the barbecue. The rain stays away, the sun comes out, the wind blows in from the North. We sit in the garden, but it’s definitely weather for wearing a coat! I had a couple of beers (and managed to avoid spilling them) and a little cannabis to calm the tremor. Tremor definitely reduced, but dyskinesia unfortunately unaffected. We stay and chat until I am flagging, and then return home to walk the dog and slob out in front of the telly. It’s chilly enough that we decide to light the woodburner. It is June, right?