One Year ago today

On October 5, 2023. I spent an hour in the office of a neurologist he took my complete medical history and then he spent quite a lot of time getting me to make certain movements and at the end of it all he stood up and he said:” I think you have Parkinson’s disease.” the reason I had been sent to see a neurologist was because I kept falling down I would trip up over something or I would have what I now know that they call it in Parkinson’s a ‘freeze’ my feet wouldn’t move but the rest of my body would think we were still moving and then I would fall down . About a week after I had this diagnosis my GP phoned me up and he said he wanted to know how I was getting on how and how was I feeling about this diagnosis and I said well , I’ve seen the the videos with Michael J fox and I’m not too happy about this and he said:”Anne Leueen you’re already 74 years old and then he said :”something else will probably kill you before the Parkinson’s does.” I know that doesn’t sound very encouraging but I actually took it as it was encouraging. Now I am 75 years old and I guess I don’t have any terrible symptoms of Parkinson’s, so far, I have some tremors in my hands and it makes typing difficult for me. and that’s why I’m using voice access I’m using voice access right now! I realized that Parkinson’s is a progressive disease and I may in the future have something much worse than just mild tremors in my hands but I will just learn to live with that whatever it is. My husband is an invaluable support to me. He is absolutely supportive I can’t say enough about him and his support.Without him I would be very, very, ane it would be very different for me having Parkinson’s. I know that now an entire year has gone by and I am still not entirely reconciled to this diagnosis but I am more or less accepting it now. I do know for one thing that exercise is very important and it happens that there is a group of people in Austin Texas they’re called They’re called Power for Parkinson’s they have over 1000 videos on YouTube with exercise classes I do these classes every day when my husband goes for a nap in the afternoon When he goes for his nap I go to a different room and I do these exercises and they’re great! I will see the neurologist again at the end of October and I will be able to tell him how I’m getting on and in fact I think I’m getting on pretty well. If you follow this blog you will know that I decided to give up competing a couple of years ago But if I could get a qualification as a para equestrian perhaps I might consider competing again? I don’t know I don’t really know. Some of you you may already know that I did try to get a qualification as a para but at this point in time I was not sufficiently disabled. Well, that’s good news for now that is about all I have to say about this Parkinson’s Disease thing I think that ,you know, I’m still getting to grips with it but I think I’m doing OK actually oh, I have a few minor tremors in my hands.And I know that as Parkinson’s is a progressive disease and this may get worse and I may have much worse things than just mild tremors in my hands it makes it very difficult for me to type. So I have to use voice access well thank goodness, there is such a thing as voice access that’s great isn’t it?

Power for Parkinson’s and they have over a thousand videos on Youtube I think. I do their exercise videos every day, every single day, when my husband is having a nap in the afternoon I go into the master bedroom that’s not the bedroom that’s underneath where he is napping and I’II do these exercises and they’re excellent they really are also I’m back to riding my horse unfortunately he has an injury at the moment so he’s in stall rest so that isn’t so good but he will recover i’m sure that he will recover he’s recovered before from injuries worse than this and as bad as this and I think that he will recover from this and I will that will then be able to get back to riding the most important thing is that he’s able to go down to Florida.His vet said that she thought it would be much better for him to be in a warmer climate where he could get out and be eating some grass and out being walked, you know, and that here he could be stuck indoors because of the snow and ice. As you may know if you follow this blog I gave up the whole concept of competition about 2 years ago I don’t think I want to compete anymore and that’s fine with me and so I mean you know would I compete as para equestrian perhaps I would I’m not sure about that.As you may know I did try to get a qualification as a para but I wasn’t disabled enough which of course is good news at the moment anyway. So that’s about it really I don’t think I got much else to say about all this, Parkinson’s disease, thing I’m learning to live with it now.This photo was taken at the Global Dressage Festival in 2018 .We were competing in the Intermediare 1 class.