What You Can’t See

PD can be very obvious. If you know someone with Parkinson’s, there are many symptoms you easily spot. Even if you have an untrained eye or take a casual glance. Tremors in someone’s hands or feet, for example. Awkward gait and overall unsteadiness on one’s feet are two more obvious signs.

But there’s a lot more that you can’t see. Things that go on inside a person’s brain. Things caused by the disease and other things caused by the medication that treats it. In the former category, an inability to concentrate is one of my most troubling unseen symptoms. It’s the reason I can no longer read books or watch movies (unless I’m at a theatre). Up until the last 2 or 3 years, reading a book was something I did on a fairly regular basis. I know because I kept a list of the books I read every year. Watching a movie with friends every Thursday and Sunday night was a weekly ritual for years, too. Both have gone by the wayside.

And, there’s the side effects of the medication. The side effects you probably will never see. For me, it is the compulsion to work on a project without stopping. Actually I mean without being able to stop. A compulsion like that struck recently. How else to explain working from 10:00 in the morning to almost midnight on a task that I knew would take 1 or 2 week’s to finish. But, I could not bring myself to a reasonable stopping point and let it go. So, I kept going way beyond the point anyone else would have.

Another side effect of my PD medication is the nightly vivid dream. And, I do mean nightly and I do mean vivid. Prior to Mr. PD, I had dreams that were brief, garbled and usually made no sense. Now.....I'm dreaming in a full-length feature film format. Very clear images and conversations with a storyline that has continuity. They're so real that oftentimes I awake feeling like I hadn't slept. Not because I'm tired, because I'm not. But because it feels like I stayed up all night watching a movie....in my head! Very strange feeling and sometimes I can't shake it for an hour, or so.

It's all part of the package and I've learned how to adapt to it. Sometimes better than others.

Richard Beattie

February 2, 2019

Greenwood, Mississippi