“In 2005, I felt this fear coming up in my chest but this time my left hand began to shake.Something was wrong. I knew that for few months but I had been pushing things away. When I looked it up on the Internet, it looked like Parkinson's and the neurologist said it was. Suddenly all these symptoms that I had been pushing to one side came out, particularly the tremor. My hand and my jaw, things like that. People often ask me ‘How did you feel when you were told you had Parkinson’s? As I said to you, it was just the delight of thinking I could just get rid of all this stress in my life. I hadn’t been working very well and I had found it very difficult and that was because of Parkinson's but I didn’t realise that it was undermining me.It has been a very mixed time. Especially for my wife because once I got Parkinson's, I began to be very slow in my movements, in my reactions, in my speech, I was shaking. She felt she was beginning to lose me, the me that she had known for all these years. Once I was given the medication, it was very effective. I was off to the clouds. So she felt she was losing me again, but in a different way. Gradually it got better.But then last June it got a lot worse.

There is a French neurologist up in London called Patricia Limousin. She deals with what is called deep brain stimulation. They put electrodes in your head connected to a control panel in your chest and it sends electric

impulses throughout your body which is very similar to what the dopamine used to do when it was produced in my brain. They did the operation in May 2014 and I have been very good since. It has been slightly different than before because I would have very short periods each day where I was at 90% capacity. Now I don’t have any of those upsides, it is all very straight. But the thing is that it is about 80%. So I don’t quite hit that highest level I did before but I am more constant during the day. I don’t shake. So great as far as I am concerned. I have been very lucky.”

“The operation is not a cure though. Underneath it is all getting worst. It has got so bad before the operation. If I was in a off period, if I wanted to get up and go to the door it would take me ten, fifteen minutes to turn around in this chair, then slowly get up, grab holds of things and get to the door. It would take me about an hour to get undressed and go to bed.
I can’t even imagine that now. My brain is causing this but I don’t feel I have lost any mental power particularly. I am bit more forgettable than I used to be but I do remember things. My short memory is good but sometimes because I have to concentrate on one thing at the time I might  forget something I am told.
But if somebody gives me a number or if I do
a crossword, I can do that quite easily. So it hasn’t affect me that much in that respect."