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A long road

Bryn Williams was apprehensive when he first told his work colleagues he had Parkinson's disease last month. But their positive reaction has filled him with optimism for the future

* Bryn Williams
* The Guardian,
* Saturday July 26 2008
* Article history

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008...s&feed=society

When my consultant [doctor] phoned me to tell me I had Parkinson's disease, the first question I asked was: "How long do I have?". Not "How long do I have ... to live?" or "How long do I have ... to wait for a second opinion?" but "How long do I have left at work?". My immediate concern was how I was going to foot the bills of the next 20 years. It was September 2007, I was 36, I had two daughters aged five and three, and I had just doubled my mortgage to refurbish our - now beautiful - home. My fears were financial, not physical.

Parkinson's disease is a progressive disorder in which the brain cells that produce a chemical called dopamine die for unknown reasons. When one part of the brain decides that a particular movement would be a good idea, it is dopamine that carries that message to another part of the brain and activates the motion. As the dopamine-producing cells die, dopamine levels drop and the message can't reach its destination. The intention to walk, for example, remains an intention and the person "freezes". Losing a few billion dopamine-producing cells doesn't actually kill you - but freezing in the path of an oncoming bus will.

If not being able to move out of the way of oncoming traffic isn't inconvenient enough, a multitude of unwanted signals still reach the limbs. Unchecked by the brain because there isn't enough dopamine to carry the "please don't do that" message you lose the ability to sit at rest and your limbs tremble, twitch, shake and shudder.

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