My husband Ron has Parkinson's as many of you know. He was diagnosed a couple of years ago, but the doctors think he has had it for several years. Parkinson's has been around since ancient times. There are several symptoms, tremors, muscular rigidity, slowness of movement, (more about that later) and impaired balance and coordination. Those are the motor functions. There are also non-motor functions such as memory impairment, dementia, hallucinations, and acting out dreams. There is no cure for this insidious disease just a slow disintegration of mind and body.
Ron is on a variety of medicines that keep him fairly stable. Other than the tremors, his two main symptoms have been a complete slow down of his physical functions such as dressing or performing any activity like showering, eating etc. It has become kind of a joke in the family that when we get up in the morning, I can practically clean the house in the time it takes for him to get shaved and dressed for breakfast. I have to laugh or I would just get to impatient with him and I don't want to do that.
The other symptom that bothers him is short term memory and confusion. His long term memory is phenomenal. He can replay ball games from high school but he can't remember day to day moments. He also cannot correctly process conversations. He gets things scrambled.
But on the whole, he is handling the disease well. Our family is very protective of him always making sure he doesn't fall. They persuaded us to go to Florida for the winter so he wouldn't have to worry about the snow and ice. So it is kind of ironic, that the first fall occurred last night when he fell out of bed. Parkinson's patients have a tendency to act out their dreams especially early in the morning during deep REM sleep. Ron has had this symptom for several months now. He will thrash and fight and yell. I usually wake him up when that happens, but I was sleeping soundly when I heard this loud thud. He had fallen flat on his face on our hardwood floor. He was bleeding from a bump on his forehead and his nose. He is fine but has been very shaky all day. We talked about getting a rail for his side of the bed but have decided to just put the extra pillows down on the floor for now.
I walk a fine line between coddling him and encouraging him. He has days where he worries about what comes next and other days where he is happy go lucky. Humor and exercise seem to work best for keeping him on an even keel. We try to get out and walk every day. I encourage him to teach the little guys how to play baseball. I order him books from the library and I am encouraging him to use the computer. We have a couple of trips planned for late summer because we both love to travel. And the benefits of travel stimulate the mind.
I am writing this blog to help me keep track of his progress and to relieve some of my stress. So until next time I'm keeping the good thoughts.
Love ya both!!!
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