27/10/2024
Banging my head against a Brick Wall.
Friday night and the lights are low. In fact they are non existent. I switched the damn things off just milliseconds before Parkinson, sensing a lightning opportunity to wage mischief decided to remove my balance ability from me.
Incapable of preventing it, I allowed my body to swoon in a manner reflective of a dancer in Swan Lake and coast gently to the floor. Here it stayed, curled cozily in a foetal position as I gazed into the pitch black ether above me, savouring it’s mystery and profundity. No. It wasn’t like that at all. Decked out in nothing more than my under pants, I , arms flailing, fell heavily dropping to the floor as a sack of spuds would do. I have become so used to this situation striking unexpectedly that a sixth sense kicks in. I can’t stop the tumble but my body has learned to fall in a relaxed manner that allows me in a couple of seconds to hold a full scale debate on the downward pitch as to how I should position my body for the landing so there’s damage limitation.
Magnificent. I am on the ground relatively safely, unhurt.
Bang! I spoke too soon.
My head snapped back and cracked against the wall. Damn. That did hurt. Needing a little recovery time to assess the damage, I just lay there, thinking.
Nah. I’m fooling myself. I lay there because falling is the easy part. Getting up can be sheer hell. And so it proved to be on this occasion. Every attempt to turn over to a position from which I can get to my knees and right myself to a point where eventually I can stand again is thwarted by Mr.P. He’s in that mood where he’s decided my sins of the week must be paid for by lying helpless for a while. Indeed, Parkinson’s plays no favourites. The tribunal determined I should pay a penalty and penalty I must pay.
There is a brief moment when the notion tickles me that I am going to lie here forever. I can’t move, I can’t get up, I’m out of reach of my lifeline bell pull. Oh deary, deary me. Disaster. But we Parky sufferers are a tough bunch. Never give up, never surrender. Been through all this before. A little thinking time is called for and that I have aplenty. I’m not going anywhere.
Brainpower kicks in and I think back to the previous week when a programme presenter on Mid Sussex Radio read a piece I had written about my experience with Parkinson’s and asked if he could read it on his show. Flattery will get anyone anywhere with me. After a lifetime in television I’m a confirmed media tart. Roy Stannard heaped more glory on my head by asking for my choice of music that he could play as he read it. Wow. Icing on the cake and I immediately chose my favourite girl Tuva Semmingsen with her colleagues conductor Sarah Hicks and soprano Christine Andersen with The Danish Symphony Orchestra’s The Good, The Bãd and The Ugly.
That I should have a work of mine presented in such esteemed company was astonishing. These ladies had achieved over 150 million hits on YouTube. Roy did a marvelous job on his radio show and the production flattered the hell out of me.
Thinking back over this morale boosting event worked. There was a stirring in the limbs. Feeling began to return and hope that I might regain an upright position, recovery from my fall.
Then the icing on my Parkinson’s cake occurred.
There was Clint Eastwood in front of me. And the hero of the Good, The Bad and The Ugly was far from kind to me. In fact he snarled.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Get up”.
You don’t argue with a tough looking hombre wielding a six gun and I complied.
I didn’t exactly scramble to my feet. Not even a quartet of famous people can quite kick Parkinson’s in the bum that hard. But I renewed my efforts to get onto my knees, eventually struggled back onto the settee and returned to a sitting position from which I walked again.
But I didn’t put the light back on again and in the dark I could hear Roy laughing and giggling with Clint, Tuva, Christine and Sarah.
“That fixed the old coote. Lying there letting Parkinson’s get the better of him. Who the hell does he think he is?”
Don’t worry chaps and chapesses. I know who I think I Am. I’m the man who broke the back of evil Parkinson’s.
WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS.
