Chapter 242 - Some Thoughts from the Shower

A quiet Xmas day, saw no one, a few phone calls and family called in for breakfast yesterday Boxing Day on their way south. She has been making a wall hanging calendar for the friend around the corner, I have been chasing down elusive and distant relatives genealogically. Late yesterday she was experiencing cabin fever, so we walked the block around our village. We are yet to install the embroidery application I bought her as a Xmas present, something she declared an interest in but has since suggested otherwise.

Anyway, beneath the shower, experiencing my usual earth shattering ideas, none of which come to fruition, I realised that she has not complained of, or for that matter, physically demonstrated leg cramping problems either at night when getting out of bed or during the day. "Probably the magnesium" she says when I ask. I was long ago trained to investigate changes in & about objects to discover the causes of later behaviour. She does not remember reducing her Vitamin C intake, suggested by the nutritionist, the neurologist suggested the magnesium. I forget to itemise the non-prescription chemicals she takes, wondering why we tend to ignore the impact of such things, even if they frequently don't provide the advertised benefits, there will always be some effect on our bodies' chemical factories.

Anyway, she takes 1 only magnesium tablet at 1500 each day, saying she thinks such timing spreads the benefit throughout the evening into bedtime. The tablet contains

Magnesium as heavy oxide 457mg (equivalent magnesium 366mg)

Manganese (sulphate monohydrate) 4mg

Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine hydrochloride) 50mg

 The bottle of the above will be empty in a few days, then she will use a different brand

Magnesium as heavy oxide 325 mg
Manganese as amino acid chelate 5mg
Vitamin B6 60.8mg (equivalent pyridoxine 50mg)

On the latter bottle there is a caution that pyridoxine hydrochloride "may be dangerous when used in large amounts or for a long time".  So how long is "long" for this piece of string?

Yesterday while hand stitching parts of the wall hanging she mentioned that her thinking processes were sluggish, she thinks this has occurred since having the tooth extracted last Thursday. An effect of the injections? She remembers a bloke in our PD group saying something similar. She commented this morning that she completes some hand stitching then sometime later realises that the the result is not what she intended, so has to unpick it, beginning again. Her cognition seems to be failing, although I have not noticed. She thinks this effect began on the weekend, maybe Sunday. I queried whether there were difficulties completing last week's puzzle magazines, the results posted on Thursday, the day of the extraction. There were none. So I'm most interested in how she copes with the puzzles in tomorrow's magazines. There have been no problems with sewing this morning.

Chapter 241 - Just Another Xmas

It's not that we are ageing, rather Xmas's become closer together as the years race by. We are going nowhere, visiting no one, being visited by no one, except some are calling for breakfast on Boxing Day, on their way south to the island state for holidays. She believes Xmas Day is unsafe on the roads, so minimising stress, discomfort, avoiding tinselled artificial portrayals of mythical sentimental scenery (read the texts & wonder at the discrepancies) imported into a different climate in a different hemisphere then overlaid with Disney cartoon culture crap, we stay at home. She donated the large artificial (is there any symbolism in an object made in dead plastic?) to our village hall a few weeks ago. Last year a neighbour friend took pity on her by donating a smaller artificial tree and that she has decorated to sit on a cupboard in our living area. She made an attractive patchwork wall hanging of a candle that she had me hang in our lounge room window. It is quite attractive. The neighbour friend says, looking at the hanging from outside on the street, she sees a cross displayed, must be in the eye of the beholder viewing the colours used as such was unintended. Hidden in our attic space I found the metal plate manger scene to which I had attached, on the rear, Xmas lights some years ago. Although the figures displayed are distinctly of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, I felt guilty a few moments ago, having written the above, so climbed the ladder, retrieved the object, suction-cupped it to the kitchen window and plugged it into a power point. As I read/heard somewhere recently, western civilisations (i.e. "Christian") are crippled (maybe motivated?) by guilt, whereas others by shame, a generalisation that explains much.

After I was critical of her not following the neurologist's suggestion to halve the 3PM Stalevo dose she decided to do so about a week ago for 2 days, finding her tremors increased as the dyskinesia reduced but she was frightened by a perceived loss of balance, probably due to increased stiffness & freezing, so she returned to the higher dose. She failed to tell me that she had experimented for only two days; we have agreed after Xmas for her to try for a longer period before reporting back to the neurologist in February. Google, search Wikipedia, to learn what Dyskinesia looks like. She says she prefers dyskinesia, a rolling, squirming, writhing of the upper body to tremors and loss of balance. I tend not to notice it in her; in a woman that used to attend our PD group I always noticed the movement, a sort of dance of the upper body parts.

From the beginning of this week she felt a gold filled molar in her lower right jaw was increasingly sensitive, the gum was sore and her face began to swell. Fearful that she may have complications over the holiday period she contacted her excellent dentist; booked solid, although promised to find an appointment time for her. The same message each day when she rang, until Wednesday when, after making an appointment to see a doctor, the dentist asked me to call in for an anti-biotic script. Then Thursday she was asked to the dentist's at 2:45PM, so she brought her meds forward 1 hour for the whole day, waited about 1/2 an hour at the surgery, the offending tooth was removed, her gum required several stitches and she left the surgery with a lop-sided smile on her face. In the spirit of the season her dentist is an angel. Last night soup & some pain killers and she continues with the anti-biotics. Today the swelling has reduced & she is feeling OK.

Her current meds:

0700
Stalevo 200/50/200
Deralin 40
Sifrol 1.0
Cresta
Astrix

1100
Stalevo 200/50/200
Deralin 40

1300
Sifrol 1.0

1500

Stalevo 200/50/200
Deralin 40

1900
Stalevo 200/50/200
Deralin 40

2230
Sifrol 1.0

2400
Sinemet CR 200/50
Deralin 40

Chapter 240 - Odd Problems

Weeks now since the neurologist advised her to reduce the 3PM Stalevo to 100/25/200 yet she has postponed doing so. Instead, on 29th November, she decided to replace the 3PM Stalevo with Madopar 200/50 which lacks the Comtan like ingredient because she blames that for her "writhing" of head & shoulders. I don't think so directly, although that may help maintain higher levels of L-Dopa in her system. I have become used to her constant movement, not noticing, except occasionally. I assume others do.

One Sunday recently she fell in the laundry, the clothes rack having tipped over, I in my dungeon next door heard nothing. She told Me a few days later when she pointed out a large bruise. Likewise, she never told me about colliding with the open door of the dish washer bring painful around a bruise on her lower left leg.

This morning she was unable to rise, seated on the side of the bed, making attempts to rise far enough to grasp her trolley, needing the loo. I rose to help her. She said the pain in her left hip & down her leg were preventing her standing upright, blaming the collision with the dish washer. She shuffled, steps small & stuttering, to the bathroom. Did not wish to use the commode. A few minutes later she called, wanting the tube of Ice Gel on her trolley, a little too far out of reach.

She thinks the kitchen chairs she sits on while spending hours at embroidery & quilting to blame for her pains. Rather, the great lack of exercise.

Skipping attendance at the Day Respite last Friday, she thinks she may not return, the old age patronising has become too much for her.

Off now to our monthly PD Support Group, Xmas lunch at the Club today.