Chapter 444 - Blood Tests and Another PD Clinic

The results of the 12 blood tests requested by our GP resulted in only one anomaly, and that for cholesterol, for which he intended to prescribe Lipitor until I told him some years previously she had muscular pains in her arms due to Lipitor. In looking at the results myself, there are other parameters outside reference ranges which the GP perhaps considers acceptable. He referred her to a doctor in Hot Air City to investigate whether she has problems other than PD that may cause her to feel she needs to defecate yet is unable to do so. I think I have previously mentioned that she sometimes has a bowel motion without knowing she has done so; this only when on the loo or commode, she has never messed herself. She continues to lose weight.

At 0600 last Wednesday Wild Dog drove us to the Vets Hospital in Big Smoke for appointments with PD allied health professionals, OT, Physio, Dietitian, Speech Pathologist and Counsellor. We arrived about 0900 and left at 1500, after an intense day probably made more so by my waffling and questioning. Somehow, neither of us noticed till later that we had neither lunch nor coffee breaks! We came away with more appropriate exercises (which I have passed on to the person from Wild Dog that runs her through exercises 3 times each week) and a caution about her using a straw for drinking because a Parkies throat muscles are slow to react to streams of fluid projected towards the back of the throat resulting in particles entering the airway; thus creating conditions for infection and pneumonia. I have noticed that she has often had bouts of coughing at the end of meals when I may have given her soft drink or fruit juice to drink through a straw. The Counsellor wishes to set up some phone sessions with both of us, perhaps using Skype about which I cringe but I will set it up on her machine; the last time I used it was 2013. These items don't seem much for a whole day in consultation, but are the matters I immediately recall.

I had a cataract operation on my right eye a fortnight ago. Since it was done in Hot Air City, respite was arranged through Wild Dog for two nights and days because I was not permitted to drive following the procedure. Procedure went well.