I got my Parkinson’s diagnosis last July, after nearly two years of struggle with various doctors and ER staff about random dizzy spells and periods of almost debilitating fatigue. I got a new GP and she got me a brain scan (no anomalies detected) and a visit to a neurologist who gave me clarity.

So I’m on the standard med, carbidopa-levodopa (which I internally joke as takeadopa-leaveadopa, which I get at my local little free pharmacy…I should do a cartoon on that…) and it has improved things noticeably, mostly in the realm of physical symptoms.

But it’s a menu of five entries, and some side dishes, not all of which are getting better. Tremors are, until lately, minor, and mostly in my left hand. The others, balance, fatigue, stiffness, and brain fog, come and go. Every day is one or two different entries, of various portions.

When I was diagnosed, the neurologist said I was borderline late onset Parkinson’s, and that I had five, maybe as long as ten more years before I would be needing help. Which was good to know. Maybe my finicky heart will take me off the playing field first. As of now, this is my working cure for Parkinson’s.

That’s because my terror is the tremors start getting into my right hand, which is my drawing hand, and I can’t draw anymore. I’m already seeing how the left hand tremors are making it hard to type out things on the iPhone, because holding it, and a camera steady in both hands, is challenging when the left won’t stop shaking, even if it’s not very much (this is why having tremors mostly in my left hand is Not the blessing it might seem).

But it is the right hand that is always in control. So of course now it’s starting to get into my right hand. Not so it’s noticeable to anyone but me, because I am used to having precision in that hand. And this is really dragging me down because when the right had precision goes I’m done for.

I’m extremely right handed…a thing I discovered reading a paper about how some gay males who either have no brothers or are the first borns are more likely to be. There was an attached questionnaire you could take that asked you which hand you used for various tasks, and it was clever. Brushing your teeth, using a broom, dusting, wiping off a table, cleaning a window, that sort of thing. And the choices were left hand always, left hand mostly, either-or, right hand mostly, right hand always. There were about a dozen of these questions and I was ticking off right hand always on all of them. It surprised me to learn that even most right handed folks switch off from time to time on these task, while I never did.

Yesterday I noticed, because it was hard not to, the tremors were becoming evident in my right hand.

So it goes, as the tralfamadorians say…