Words, words, words

JON: I’m not 100% how it came about, but last week I found myself giving an interview about my exciting life as a food scientist to a journalist from the Daily Telegraph’s ex-pat edition (not a “real” paper, but an electronic version). It’s can be read here, if anyone’s interested. It’s not meant to be taken too seriously, but Marie and I have grabbed the opportunity to pitch another article to the same journalist on the delights of being long-term sick in a foreign land, as viewed through the prism of Parkinson’s. When (or if?) this second article comes to press/to pass, I’ll let you know.

Giving the interview took about 40 minutes, so what, I hear you ask, have I been up to the rest of the time? I’ve been buying big boys’ toys, and great fun I have been having too. Pride of place goes to my android smart phone which I have mentioned before – this gadget is so complex it took me 3 days just to work out how to switch the damn thing on… I’m now in the process of learning how to program it, and mostly failing. Actually I think I’m doing rather well, although I should give most of the credit to the extra dose of Ritalin I’ve been taking since our latest consultation with the psychiatrist – it really helps my concentration. My objective with the phone is to develop an application to monitor my tremor, twitching and general activity levels over extended periods of time. I’ll keep you up-to-date with my progress (or more likely lack of it), so watch this space, but don’t hold your breath.

In fact, the Ritalin has given us an idea for another article, one we will write ourselves and try to get into the magazines of both the British and the Danish PD associations. Because it appears that I am a bit of a trailblazer here (which sounds much better than a hapless guinea pig, don’t you agree?) since the use of Ritalin to treat motivation/apathy problems in Parkinson’s is very new and not much reported on. Both my psychiatrist and my psychologist have assured me that my personal experiences will be of interest to the professionals, and I hope an article could also put ideas into the heads of impassive people with Parkinson’s and their desperate partners. Ritalin has certainly done wonders for me – I seriously doubt that I’d be doing any of things I’ve written about here (including writing the blog at all) without my little magic pills.