Navigating Parkinson's Disease: Andy's Journey

Yeah, I did want to talk about medication because for most, for all Parkinson's people, medication is pretty much all we have. And then later on, and I'm exploring it myself, surgery is an option. Again, the misconception with surgery is that it's going to cure you, it won't. It'll just improve your symptoms, or well, the theory is it'll improve your symptoms. lots of research and lots of sort of feedback saying sometimes surgery makes them worse. There is also a pump which is again delivers a dose continuously subcutaneously delivers the dose and again that's also another option for me to later on hopefully so medication we stuck with it it does I can't function without it I have to say you know without medication I'm pretty rubbish I am I can't move I can't speak I'm pretty rubbish it take me and my kitchen's about I don't know one second a 0.5 a 0.5 second walk away I mean you could jump it from here to the kitchen yeah it would take me without medication a good couple of minutes to get there so you know it's I couldn't function without that medication But the downside is, but the jerky movements you see in my head now, they're not Parkinson's, well they are Parkinson's related, but Parkinson's isn't causing it. It's my medication. They cause sort of motion and stuff like that. That's the medication because the old ones are wearing off, but the new ones are now kicking in. So that, and my speech as well. Now, my speech is, I find the most embarrassing part of Parkinson's. Even more embarrassing when you forget where you are and you walk in there and speak naked, you can't find a toilet. Even more embarrassing than that is the fact that I can't speak. You've known me for a few years now and I'm pretty gobby. And I miss, I miss that, I miss that, I suppose. And I think also, because people think, when they see you can't speak, or you slur, it's more like you slur your words, people instantly think that you're drunk. Well, sometimes I am, I don't deny that, but a lot, most of the time, particularly like 11 o'clock in the morning, when I'm having a one-off, you know, I'm walking down the street and people are avoiding me because they think I'm drunk. Then that's a bit embarrassing. But the speech is the worst thing for me. One of the worst. I hate not being able to talk.