Chapter 538 - Just Simple Problems

I thought I had noted a personal event in one of my recent posts but a quick skim indicates that I hadn't. Some weeks ago, about mid morning, I was sitting here in my dungeon when all of a sudden there was a circular ball of light in front of me, sparkling. The effect lasted much less than a second. There was no pain, no movement in surprise. Just my acknowledgement that I experienced it. Then in contemplating the experience I thought that it was probably a TIA or "mini-stroke" in the visual cortex of my brain rather than a Damascus Road incident. Since then, in self analysis mode, I have taken note of my increasing tendency to mistype, or so I suspect, because without appropriate error records that may simply be my imagination. Thank goodness for those squiggly red lines. My Lumosity trends show my Flexibility score had decreased some 2% during September but has almost recovered and my Memory is slightly down. What! Me paranoid? I'm 7 points below my highest LPI so I can't be too bad.

I sent an email this morning which explains, I believe, why she has had poor Quality of Life and I'm being worn to a frazzle. I drafted a detailed email a week or so ago but realised there was too much detail to see the point (not that I am ever guilty of telling you how a watch works should you ever ask me the time) and anyway my experiment was incomplete.

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A new Exelon 5 patch is  placed on P in the following sequence Left then Right of Upper Arm, Chest then Shoulder each morning about 0830. I see neither good nor ill effects. Even with tape applied across the patches her sweating tends to loosen them.

Several weeks ago our GP had P take a blood test. On that day P fasted then she had a light lunch at a cafe. We realised that evening that she had experienced a "good"day with minimal dyskinesia. On following days I attempted to reproduce that unexpected behaviour by initially not giving her Vitamin C and D and calcium tablets at breakfast. Her daily dyskinesias continued. Once I removed a tub of yoghurt at breakfast and Sustagen at lunch time from her diet she experienced minimal dyskinesias. Because the FitBit records of the dyskinesia of her right leg seemed not to be of interest to anyone other than myself and wearing the device around her ankle was an irritation to P I ceased attaching the device ages ago so I have no record of her dyskinesias during those dietary "experiments".

Two days ago on Saturday, 2nd November, I attached the FitBit to P's right leg and she ate minimal protein during the whole day. Then yesterday, Sunday, she had her normal diet of yoghurt at breakfast, Sustagen at lunch and a typical evening meal we often have of grilled fish of which she did not eat much because she was stressed with dyskinesia of her legs and a few chocolates during the day. By evening P was quite stressed, hot and sweating and her legs pained her. The difference between the FitBit recordings for the two days was quite marked, Saturday showed minimal traces while Sunday showed "intense" bars from about 1400 onward. Today P will eat no protein until the evening meal.

Of interest is P's behaviour throughout most of Saturday afternoon, when, dyskinesia free and using a piece of wooden dowel, she scraped the carpet of her sewing room searching for pins and needles embedded in the carpet. I gave up trying to discourage her from this useless task. So much carpet fluff was produced from her efforts that I had to vacuum the carpet the next day. Also, bending forwards in her wheelchair while scraping the carpet caused a bloody discharge from her stoma.

I will let you know the outcome of P limiting her protein intake to the evening.

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I could import the FitBit traces into here but I will leave that until she has a high protein meal tonight just before going to bed about 1900.

This morning she is alert and very keen to "sort" things, a tendency she has long had but I convince myself that there is more intensity in her keenness when not suffering dyskinesia. The coat rack in our hallway is always overloaded with jackets and cardigans; she is now "sorting it out", telling me I have too many. That after I found and bought a new light weight jacket last week to replace my previous one that was looking somewhat tired. There are obsessive-compulsive issues here; with her "sorting" not my "buying"!

Seguent Hycor was again applied to her eye lids from Thursday 31st October and apart from her dabbing her eyes with a tissue the following day only, no further problems have been noticed.

We had forgotten someone's birthday and days later I had her make a phone call, using the simple one button "speed dial" on her non screen phone. She did not seem to know what to say and had trouble hearing responses. I'll do that sort of thing myself in future rather than think the social contact good for her.