2. The diagnosis
Getting diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease is still quite a hassle. I experienced it as a kind of riddle, a puzzle. Later it turned out that the way they had found out about me was still quite common. How did that go? Well, in the years leading up to it I was able to do my job less and less. I was tired more and more often and for longer, and I mean really exhausted.
I was a house painter and artist. To clarify: by house painting I mean sanding, puttying, lacquers, sealants and the whole rata plan that a house painter performs. And by art painting I mean painting paintings and murals like an artist does.
Both courses require a lot of physical effort and at first I thought I had a motivation problem. For example, it is much more fun to make murals and paintings on commission than to do house painting. Still, the murals and paintings also began to struggle.
So I thought I didn’t see any challenge in it anymore, and that’s why I was tired so often. It only started to get weird when my right arm and hand stopped working as I wanted and started to hurt. Now many experienced painters have learned the ability to paint with both left and right. But if as a right-hander you have to switch to exclusively left, it’s only a matter of time before your left hand is overloaded.
That right hand, the exceptional fatigue and finally also a ‘dragging’ right leg were enough reason to go and see the doctor. That with the right hand, I had heard something about that before. It happened to many painters and it took a small operation to get it right: the carpal tunnel syndrome. To be sure about that, I was referred to physiotherapy. That fatigue could indeed be a lack of motivation and do not rule out the fact that you are getting older: 41 is quite different from 25. That dragging right leg, a podiatrist should have a look at it, a referral was arranged in no time. During physiotherapy my hand, wrist and arm were moved in all directions: without result. No carpal tunnel syndrome. It wasn’t painful either, it just didn’t do what I wanted.
Finally, a conversation with my brother yielded something. My brother is a psychiatrist and that field has similarities with neurology. What he said was very simple. “If your body isn’t doing what your brain wants, you’re talking about a neurological problem.” I discussed it with the physiotherapist and the GP and eventually I got a referral to a neurologist in Sneek, who in turn immediately requested a second opinion for me because he himself was retiring. My brother had also referred me, so all in all I went to see three neurologists. One in Sneek, one in Groningen and another in Utrecht. All those agreements could only lead to one conclusion, the physiotherapist and I said to each other. We would rule out that it was something neurological. A scientific method called deduction. You just cross off things that have nothing to do with it, until the only option remains. Little did we know that the only option would remain so soon.
It hit on the first appointment. It really was such a bolt from the blue. My wife was still working and I had stopped working earlier that day, to pick up our three-year-old son from the nursery and then to go to the neurologist at the hospital in Sneek. He asked me some questions, had me do some exercises with my fingers (bring your thumb and forefinger together as quickly as possible), and had me walk back and forth for a while, observing me closely. That dragging leg immediately caught his eye. And my right arm didn’t swing with the rhythm of my walking motion. It just hung on a bit. The first neurologist I ever met said the following: ‘Mr Blom, I think you have a right to know what I think and what I think is that you have Parkinson’s disease.’ The moment he said it I knew it was the truth. And my three-year-old son? Fortunately, he was distracted by the doctor’s stuffed animals, which he was allowed to play with. I went into the mill.
To be continued.