The spirit of our times seems to urge us that we should let it all hang out. I don’t know about that as a general policy but I have posted this piece on a recent diagnosis of my own which I invite the curious or the merely morbid to read:
Diagnosis
I’m in the early stages of real Parkinson’s (PD), not Atypical Parkinsonian Syndrome (APS), many symptoms of which overlap with Parkinson’s and deploy a different, sometimes faster moving array of many of the same disabilities. No, I suffer from the classic variety of this neurodegenerative, idiopathic affliction, one which responds well to dopamine surrogates, at least initially. As the euphemism goes, one based on the model of “enslaved person” as opposed to “slave”, I am a PWP, a person with Parkinson’s.
To be precise, I am not in early onset phase, just the early stages. Typically, Parkinson’s begins around 60, and the average life expectancy following diagnosis is 7–15 years. Since I’m 78, this means I could live till 85-93, give or take….
I’m hoping that I belong in this category: “Individuals with mild motor-predominant Parkinson disease (49%-53% of individuals with Parkinson disease) have mild symptoms, a good response to dopaminergic medications (eg, carbidopa-levodopa, dopamine agonists), and slower disease progression.” < https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/276074
Imminent death is the lot of all 78 year olds, especially males. We are collectively entering the end game, not many chits are left to play. It follows that a diagnosis of PD can be enlightening. It further focuses attention on the facts of life and dying, on how to live (out) the time remaining.
Once diagnosed, I bought and have devoured a copy of Neuroscience for Dummies. I realized, as only a humanist dummy can, how much science there is which is worth knowing. Now there’s so little time in which to learn.
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Here are two succinct webpages on PD:
https://www.narayanahealth.org/blog/parkinsons-disease/amp/
https://www.narayanahealth.org/blog/what-is-parkinsons-disease/amp/