And he asked me if I had any problems and I lied and said, No

Because I because my husband was sat there or I don’t and even if he wasn’t I don’t think I would have been big enough to have said actually, I have a problemBecause it’s quite a big thing to admit to really.it’s quite I was very ashamed.I’m not ashamed now because I didn’t think it was my fault so I can talk about it quite openly but, at the time, I was very, very ashamed.

Well, I it’d be good if somebody else listening can think, Oh my God, that’s meAnd because it is the best thing to it’s the hardest thing you can ever do, it’s a bit like saying you’ve had an affair isn’t it.it’s the hardest thing to sit there and face somebody you love and tell them something awful that you’ve been doing for so long.But it’s the best thing I ever did and it almost instantly the pressure lifted from my shoulders instantly that I was owned up at least.

When I was about thirty three I started finding some strange feelings in my hand.couldn’t put any finger on it, just they wouldn’t if I picked up a door key I found I couldn’t put it in the lockand using the mouse on the computer, certain things like that, just suddenly my arm it just wasn’t working.It felt it didn’t feel normal.And this went on for about four weeks and I kept saying to my husband, I don’t know what’s wrong.Something feels strangeSo he suggested I went to see the doctor at six weeks so which I did and funnily enough the first thing he said was, You’ve got early onset Parkinson’s diseaseWhich I was outraged at because I thought, What a terrible thing to tell a young mother and how ridiculous, it couldn’t be thatBut he was actually right [laughs] long term.

…I think I was very fearful it was a brain tumour.I’ve always been scared of having a brain tumour andthat was my biggest fear so when he plucked this out of the sky I just I thought he was a mad man[laughs].I was very angry with him.I remember going back to my sister’s who was looking after my children for me while I went to the appointment and I was just so angry about it and we we almost laugh now say, Do you know, actually he was rightIt just seemed a strange thing for him to have diagnosed me with really but he obviously knew his stuff.

Have you talked to anyone ever about the operation that can be done to you?

Yes, I have and there’s no way on this earth that I’ll ever do it.I’m very, very squeamish and it freaks me out.I watched a film of it once and I sat and cried.I never cried ever having this disease and that made me cry.I sat there and cried and cried thinking, Oh my GodSo no, I’m I can’t say I’d ever, ever, ever have it done.I mean when whether it came to a point where your life was so difficult that you would I don’t know but I just pray they find a better cure to be honest.

I think you learn to cope with things.I do get the odd comment.If we go out for meals and then or if I sit in a chair for very long I stand up I’m very stiff and I’m unsteady on my feet for a little while until I get the momentum. People comment, Oh, she’s had a fewBecause we were out for a drink and that’s quite.I mean I almost laugh to myself now because it’s people’s ignorance but I, you know, that used to hurt my feelings a little bit.I think you just get used to it don’t you.People comment and but I’ve had that quite a few times and I don’t drink hardly well, a glass of wine with a meal but I don’t drink enough to be drunk.But people sort of because you’re swaying and not being, you know, normal people’s assumptions on you.

It started off started off with shopping and apparently there are three things there’s shopping addiction, a sex addiction and a gambling addiction and I had the shopping one originally.But people I used to have a lot of parcels come to the door and then people were noticing so I think then it went to I obviously I had this urge to, they say it’s to do with the dopamine isn’t it, the reward centre in your brain or something. You it lacks reward so you over compensate by this addiction to shopping or gambling, you know, to give get a it’s like a short term fair thrill I suppose, I don’t know.And because I think people would notice my shopping more I must have thought, I don’t remember, but I think obviously gambling was more discreet.

Did you think there’s something wrong here?

I think I did towards the end because it got very bad.I was losing a lot of money in a day, a huge amount of money to be honest and I think something must have triggered in my mind, I don’t know what, one day I thought, Oh my gosh, what am I doingAnd I just took all my courage to own up but I did and it’s the best thing I ever did because I didn’t realise it was the drugs I just thought it was me breaking down really.And I got very depressed but as soon as I knew there was a reason and that it can be sorted and it was and it was turned around very, very quickly.But because because I can’t now have any drugs linked to that type of thing at all because I’m obviously susceptible to it.So and to, you know, if anybody else had been sat there and told me this I wouldn’t have believed them so so for me to have gone through it is quite unbelievable really.

Well, I’ve talked to my family. Nobody in my family ever had it that we know of so I’ve looked through that, you know, that side of it. I didn’t think, I just think it’s being unlucky really in that I’ve ended up with it but I couldn’t most people end up with something in their lifetime don’t they so I the way I look at it is it’s not going to kill me. Might make me a little bit slower and, you know, disable me in certain ways but I’m grateful that can still live my life very well so.

I think after about two years or three years they did try me on Sinemet and it did stop which was one of the things they thought, Oh, maybe it is thatAnd then they offered me another brain scan just to see if the dopamine was present in the brain and it wasn’t or it was very limited so that’s pretty much when they decided that’s probably what it was.But and I don’t think you can ever be told categorically you’ve got it can you.I just think the medication works to take your symptoms away so then they assume perhaps that’s what it is.

I’m not very good at taking pills because I forget. Like yesterday we had a something happened in the morning which I had to go and deal with quickly and I hadn’t taken my tablet and I got to about nine you can feel. it’s a funny feeling comes on but I just had them in my handbag luckily so I just take them. Takes about fifteen, I just have to sit down for fifteen, fifteen minutes until it kicks in but I am not very good at taking them.

Do you actually do you forget quite a bit?

Yeah. I think I’m somebody who has always got a lot going on both in your mind and in my life and I yeah, I don’t put myself first very often. I don’t think in the morning I’m like, do you know what I mean. That’s my own but it’s not too bad because.

I mean does it often happen that you only take them because you suddenly get some symptoms?

Sometimes. I mean generally I have a routine in the morning. Monday to Friday is okay because the kids go, I do their lunches and so I tend to remember then, but I am better because now they wear off whereas before it didn’t wear off so it didn’t matter to you either for quite a while. Now, like you said, I suppose I do suddenly get a funny feeling and I think, Oh gosh, I haven’t had it So yeah, probably that is true.

I do have acupuncture. I do the holistic, I think that’s good, helps me massively.

What in what way?

It just makes me feel better when I come out, don’t know. They put them in all your points, don’t they, the needles. And when I first did it my hand in my bad hand, the needles it’s amazing. The acupuncturist was amazed. She’s never seen anything like it, the needles spun in massive circles for ages. Like the energy was just completely amazing and by the end of my, I think I had four sessions, the last one they just went in and stood still so and when I come out I do feel better. I feel I’m more less I just feel better. My tremor’s not so bad. And so also I had acupuncture, I think I had something else. I do that reflexology. Stuff like that I do, quite enjoy.

If I’m at a restaurant I’m just very careful what I order. Usually pasta, something soft because this is my sawing hand so and I can’t I can’t slice bread or, so either my husband used to cut it up a lot for me but I find that embarrassing really. So I just don’t eat food that I have to cut. You just, again it’s about pre-thinking about what you’re doing and just making life simpler for myself.