Chapter 83 - More or Less

Saturday night - Sunday morning was torture for her. In bed by midnight, up 4 times then took 2 Panamax at 4am in an attempt to ease her shaking. She was uncomfortable in bed because her legs insisted on becoming rigid, pushing her feet "out of bed". This condition gives her the sensation that she is falling out of bed, although physically that is not the case. There was no pain. Between checking emails & the like she walked the floor. I was oblivious to all.

Sunday she slept from 6:30am to 9am after taking her first meds then after her 9am meds she tried for more sleep but gave up trying, rose, no shower. At 11:30 she returned to bed for an hour, perhaps to sleep. She dressed at 1pm, was very sweaty during the afternoon. The evening was "normal".

Early Monday morning was much better. Only needing to get up once (I only recorded once but my note-taking in the early hours tends to be unreliable) before 6am meds, she then rose easily at 7:15am then showered & dressed without assistance. I neither remember nor took notes of events during the day but by 8pm she was unable to rise without assistance from her chair. Later, after her 7pm meds had kicked in she found rising from the chair easier although she had to strain to do so. By bed-time at 23:45 quite easily accomplished. She was unable to cope with doing her KYB lesson.

Early Tuesday was different again. She called for help to get out of bed at 2:30, 4:30 & 6:30am. At 6am she took her usual Madopar Rapid. At 7:50 she rose easily, showered & dressed herself (except for the sodding bra clip as usual). She decided to wash because the clothes basket was over-flowing. I carried the basket out to the laundry where she divided the contents into two heaps then throughout the day she completed two loads of washing, drying in the dryer because for a pleasant change light rain was falling. Late in the afternoon two friends called to chat with her. Earlier in the day I devised a crude test to check her ability to rise from a sitting position. It is just this; comfortably seated on her rubber cushion in her Victoria chair she begins to rise on a count of "3" as I continue counting and I record the count when she is upright on her feet. The hardly scientific & boring results are:

8:30am count of 5
9:30am count of 5
10:50am count of 5
11:30am count of 5
1:30pm count of 5
2:30pm count of 7
4:30pm count of 6
5:30pm count of 6
6:30pm count of 5
7:30pm count of 6
8:30pm count of 11
9:45pm count of 5
10:30pm count of 5
She had taken her usual meds 7pm. At 8pm she had the back door open for fresh air because she was hot & sweaty. After the "count of 11" we took a walk around our village without difficulty.

Now this morning, Wednesday, another variation. Usual 6am meds, rose about 8:15am to shower. Then called me, unable to completely dry herself. Complained of a "thickening" at the base of her spine; becomes flustered when I ask questions "You don't understand, I can't explain it." But she does anyway, & I admit I have never absorbed her comments about this properly before. She senses this thickening feeling at the base of her spine, she is forced to stoop, in attempting to counteract the stoop in order to stand & walk normally causes pain which spreads across her rear & I presume then down her legs. I dried her quickly, on with some underclothes & applied the TENS machine on her lower back. Fifteen minutes later the "thickening" had eased enough to finish dressing her. She said the TENS pulsed harder on one side than the other, so we reversed the pads to discover that the same pad (the red?) produced the harder pulsing. Puzzling. At 10am she rose from her chair on a count of 7.

Lately I have mumbled that more medication may be needed. I will continue with our rising count test. At 10am the count was 7. She thinks she feels, at times, worse after taking meds. More or less?

Yesterday we learned that our approximate octogenarian neighbour has been diagnosed with PD. We had arrived at that conclusion last year when they moved in.