Another fabulous warm Summer day. It’s a little bit hazy today, but it’s 26 degrees Celcius in the lounge this morning.
I booked some holiday flights today for my wife and I, and her youngest son and his girlfriend. I like to go away when the evenings are dark and the weather is cold – I really don’t see the point in paying out top money to go on holiday to somewhere where it’s too hot to sit out in the sun, when we are in the middle of our British Summer. The last few years we have gone away to the Canary Islands in January or February, but we are mixing it up a little bit this year by going in November. So… we have flights to Lanzarote; now I need to sort out our accommodation. I send a couple of email enquiries, and now it’s just a case of deciding which apartment takes our fancy, and then looking forward to going away. This will be the first time for me going through airport security since I had my deep brain stimulation hardware installed. I’m not exactly worried about it, because I’m sure it will be okay, but it is certainly on my mind. At least this time I won’t have any cannabis in my suitcase – something that has really worried me the last 2 years. Parkinson’s Disease medications either have no effect whatsoever on my symptoms, or the side-effects make me feel so ill that I prefer to have the symptoms! The only things that have got me through the last couple of years have been muscle relaxants – alcohol and cannabis. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t spent the last 2 years tanked up on booze and stoned out of my tiny mind… A pint of beer does the trick, and miniscule quantities of cannabis work wonders. I would have hated to have gone on holiday without anything to help me cope with the tremor, so I baked chocolate brownies with cannabis (2 small pieces per day) and packed them in Tupperware containers amongst the clothes in my suitcase. I have no idea what would have happened if I had been caught, but I did find out that possession for personal use is not a criminal offence in the Canaries, so probably the worst that would happen would have been confiscation and a slap on the wrists. This time it will be different!
Motivation – not good today, but has been worse! Energy – not a lot. Balance – not wonderful, but not actually falling over. Speech – a bit slurred (to my ears). Tremor – varies from 1 (mild) to 8 (pain in the arse). Dystonia – uncomfortable, but not the end of the world. Dyskinesia – nothing on Group ‘A’ settings, but annoying on Group ‘B’ – stayed on Group ‘A’ all day and changed to Group ‘B’ around 7pm. Will change back at bedtime.