With a little dusting down of the grey cells, I shall endeavour to provide some further insight and describe the next few chapters of the story. The main symptoms prevalent in the first few years were not immediately obvious to the untrained eye but my Parkinson's nurse assured me that he could detect that I was indeed a member of that club (reminds me of an old Groucho Marx line, " I wouldn't like to be a member of a club that would have me as a member") based on my gait ....I wasn't even aware that I had a gait, was it an amble, trot, pace or canter; apparently there is a distinctive footfall order associated with each type.
I guess the first sign that anything was wrong was the occassional problem of not being able to turn from sleeping on the right side of my body on to the left side. Although I wanted to change my sleeping position and was conscious of the signal being sent by my brain to my left leg to roll over, I got no response and had to put my foot out over the edge of the mattress and use it as a lever to manoeuvre my body weight to allow me to roll on to my left hand side ( thank goodness for Archimede's principle - "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world") Strangely this didn't alarm me for some reason, as it usually happened during the night and I had forgotten about my exertions in the morning when I awoke.
As my Parkinson's presented only on the left side of my body, the distinguishing characteristic was the lack of swinging of my left arm whilst walking or running. Incidentally this was first noticed by a work colleague as I was out for a lunchtime jog. I rapidly brushed it off as a shoulder injury I had somehow incurred and changed the subject; I was not at the stage yet of revealing my condition to anyone. Let me say now that I was indeed fortunate that the symptoms were on my left side as I was right handed and if it had presented there or on both sides (somewhat rare I believe) my journey would have been a lot shorter and a good deal more treacherous, suffice to say I doubt if I would be able to write this blog as of now.So life continued much as normal for a while, I cycled my bike to and from work everyday, played indoor soccer once a week and was able to run for the bus if I so needed. My left hand however began to experience a numb sensation now and again, the type of feeling you get if you have been sleeping on your arm and the blood was just beginning to flow back into your fingers. At other times my arm would just feel that it wasn't connected or belonged to my body and I would have to swing it around wildly and loosely to regain the sensitivity. A similar feeling then began to assert itself on my left leg and it was probably happening for quite some time before I realised I was dragging my feet on the floor rather than taking proper steps. I found out later from some work colleagues that they knew I was passing by their office cubicle or coming to pay them a visit by the sound of my soft shoe shuffle - (if I had been aware of this at the time I may have connected a ball and chain to my ankle to make it a little more atmospheric for those colleagues working late at night!).
Things continued like this for a while, before I began to have trouble dismounting from my bike or pulling up to the kerb by a traffic light, I would attempt to take my left foot off the pedal and place it on the ground to steady myself. Unfortunately my leg at this stage had lost any connection to my brain and rather receiving the signal to plant my foot firmly on the ground, it just behaved like a wooden crutch and gave way beneath me as I transfered my body weight towards it. This resulted in numerous falls, grazed hands, knees and torn jeans, surprisingly I was still able to keep these mishaps a closely guarded secret. This was to reveal itself in a more dramatic episode when playing indoor soccer at lunchtime one day when my silky dribbling skills refused to respond to the red STOP traffic signal emanating in full from my brain resulting in me careering head first into the brick wall. The impact was quite audible in the community hall and the reaction from my teamates was certainly not Schadenfreude, I substituted myself off - this episode was one of the milestones on my journey.
We shall leave it there for now and perhaps continue with the non-physical symptoms in the next chapter - (I would gladly exchange the experience of the non-physical symptoms for a weekly occurrence of running full speed head first into a brick wall)