TheBanyanTree: Update

[Monique Colver]

WARNING: There will be mention of PD here, so anyone who doesn't want to hear that crap can stop reading now. There is a common misperception that PD involves only tremors and anything else I say is made up to evoke sympathy, which is the last thing on my mind. But one person does want to know.

I'm being referred to gastro because I have gastro issues. It happens with PD, and mine started before PD was diagnosed. But whatever.

Last week I was going to go to the gym with Diana and Scott - he has been recently diagnosed with PD and they go to the gym most days because exercise is highly recommended for us. Diana hates the gym like I do, but she goes to support Scott, who prefers not to talk about PD at all. I haven't been exercising much because of issues referenced in the previous paragraph. 

I was excited! I wanted to see what I could do! I wanted to exercises my way back to functionality! 

I'd been feeling a little rundown, but that's not new, so whatever. Friday morning I wolk up in significant pain, so after I ate something I went back to bed. Pain and nausea. Then after a nap I went to work. The pain was worse though, and two hours before Diana was going to pick me up I said, "crap, I must have a UTI," and it was only getting worse. This wasn't the kind of thing one wants to wait on over a weekend. 

My doctor couldn't fit in me in at the end of a Friday, go figger, so Andrew made an online appt for me with Zoomcare who had always been great as a secondary last minute provider. 

By 5 pm I was checked in and attempting to fill a tiny bottle. 

Side note: little known fact. People with PD have a higher incidence of UTI's. No one knows why yet, but it happens. I've also heard many stories of PWP (people with Parkinson's) becoming aggressive and unreasonable when they have a UTI. Also, no explanation for this, but it's a pretty common trope. 

So yes, it was a UTI, and they wanted to do more tests to make sure nothing else was going on since there's pain in other areas and there's also been blood. I left after a huge shot in the hip and a bottle of antibiotics, and after paying a few hundred bucks, still better than the ER. The hip has been in pain ever since. Then we stopped by the grocery store on the way home and I had other scripts to pick up anyway. 

While wandering the aisles we were talking because we do that, and apparently I slipped into hyper aggressive mode without knowing it. My husband rounded on me as if I'd said something other than what I'd been saying and I told him to go wait while I finished shopping. I  couldn't think clearly so I got cereal, something, and m&m's. 

So he tells me I became very angry and aggressive, and all I remember is talking in a normal voice. He does not make these things up, and he does not overreact and I've always assumed the PWP's with aggression while having UTI'S had a other issues - like more advanced PD and dementia. From my perspective, I didn't do anything out of the ordinary. But I did, and my memory of it is false, totally false. 

Now he knows it's a side effect, and I'm not intentionally turning mean. 

PD affects so so many things. I'm going to be a PD expert eventually! But if I don't write it down, I'll forget it all! 


Monique
Sent from my iPad