Retirement difficulties. Have you ever felt battered and bruised by the new week and you look at your watch and it’s only ten o’clock on a Monday morning? No? Well I have, this one in fact. Let me share it with you and then I promise I’ll write something more cheerful next time. Honest.
The day which usually starts early with the dog walk still began early but this time because I had an appointment at the Leeds General Infirmary (LGI) hospital (rather more modern than it looks in photo above). Theoretically for a brain scan to determine whether or not I have Parkinson’s. After our phone call and the visit to the doctor’s way back last July she, the consultant (and I) were pretty sure I hadn’t. Just essential tremors, the type that weren’t essential at all, at least not to me.
I say theoretically because it didn’t turn out that way, there was no scan of my brain or anything else belonging to me. But I’m getting ahead of myself. So the appointment was at 9 o’clock but because the traffic is always terrible we allowed plenty of time. We got to the hospital at 8.15 on account of there being no traffic on account of it being the school holidays. It’s not a case of not being able to get ahead, it’s a case of being so far ahead you might as well be behind.
Still being early gave me plenty of time to have my name found. I was not on the list but it turned out that there were two lists and I was on the second one. As I said, at least I’m on one. But still something of a wait.
Never mind, I got in and met the consultant. She asked me many of the questions she’d asked me on our telephone conversation a couple of months ago. No problem. What was different was she subjected me to a number of, what I suppose you would call, tests. You know, touch your nose, touch my finger, hold your hands out straight, to the side, tap your feet, shake both hands and so on. All passed with flying colours until…
She rotated my right wrist, all fine, she rotated my left wrist, hmm, a bit stiffer than I expected. Such an innocuous phrase and on the basis of this she said, actually having met you, I think you might have Parkinson’s after all. Oh bugger, that feels like an awfully big diagnosis on an awfully small ‘failing’.
But don’t worry, she said. Me worry? Ha. It might not be the most serious form of Parkinson’s and I need to send you for a DAT scan to confirm or deny. How long, I asked? Probably about three months, she replied. Oh goody.
I don’t know what happened to the CT scan I thought I was coming here for. She did tell me the name of this ‘not so serious’ form of Parkinson’s but I’m afraid I lost a little concentration at this point so I can’t tell you what it’s called.
Anyway, off I popped feeling slightly deflated. But onward and upward. I had planned to kill two birds with one stone on this visit to town. The second involved me volunteering the services of my van either with me as a driver or without. Frankly who would want a driver with Parkinson’s?
I need not have worried because, although the office in the market advertising its role in organising voluntary activities said it opened at 9.30, at 9.45 it was still closed. I must admit I wasn’t sure my offering the van in this way was a good idea and now as it turned out I needn’t have worried. At least not yet.*
This morning is not going as planned. Never mind I’ll pop into the O2 shop while I’m here, where I bought my phone, on account of the one in Headingley having closed forever. Can you explain to me how I can check how much of my data I’ve used, like I did on my old phone? You can’t, he said, you have to look on the O2 app but you can’t do that because you’re out of data. Yes I Know that’s because I can’t check it like I used to which is why I’m here. You need more data and to get that you have to pay more, he said. I don’t want a new plan, thank you, that’s not why I came in. Goodbye.
OK, strike three and it’s only ten o’ clock. Mrs Summerhouse picks me up and we set off home. The taxi in front of us at the lights winds down its window and the passenger throws out a beer can. Oh God, I should get out and pick up the can and throw it back through the window, saying, as a friend of mine once did, I think you dropped this. Back in the day I might have. But right now I’m a 73 year old man with possibly Parkinson’s and bags of other health problems to boot. If I do that I’m asking to get smashed. Oh the joys of old age.
Retirement difficulties summary
So there we have it. 900 words about my retirement life and all its stressors and it’s not even Monday lunchtime. What’s a (retired) guy supposed to do? Smile in a philosophical fashion and say, well ain’t that just the way of things some days? Or use it as a topic for this retirement blog. I’m not good with the philosophical approach, so writing this blog will have to do.
*The Wine GB group raised over £10,000 (£87,000 in total) for Ukraine through auctioning it’s bottles of English sparkling wine.