...I guess the Administrators keep a close eye on all Newbies, and that's the way it ought to be, but to any whom I may offend in any way whatsoever I offer sincere apologies but before I begin, hey, I really must say I felt strangely privileged and proud to have watched the inauguration of a new black American President of the most powerful country in the world today...In a strange and peculiar way it took me back to my military days when, on my way to RAF Lynham in the back of a 3-ton truck we pulled into a "greasy spoon" for a wad and a cup of char and whilst sitting there heard on an old crackly wireless the terrible news that another truly charismatic American President had been assassinated...That stark memory, of walking out of that cafe with the rest of the guys on a dark, bitterly cold November evening with a billion stars winking down on us as we clambered into the back of the 3-tonner in stunned silence before embarking that night on a flight to Cyprus where we would parachute onto Morphu DZ before disappearing for a month in the Troodos Mountains, will never leave me...

OK back to business: I was diagnosed with early onset PD around two and a half years ago, here follows my list of symptoms:-

1. My posture is not good but I’m working on it…I’ve suffered considerable stiffness to my neck due to a whiplash injury sustained around 14 years ago…
I attend a Finnish stretching class, which has been of immense help, called Method Putkisto...

2. My stride length had shortened, to my mind due to arthritis in my right big toe which required an operation, arthrodesis of the 1st metatarsal joint which took me almost a year to get over…(this was just before I was diagnosed with PD) I started running again a couple of months back with the aim of running a half marathon in June alongside my Son for the PDS...weather's so bad at the moment that I'm limited to a daily gruelling 3 miler round our hilly local Golf Course...( I would wear waders save for the fact that I'd probably still be out there stuck in the mud come the Autumn...)

3. My voice weakens considerably on food intake, in particular on intake of dairy products…here again I suffered a particularly nasty bout of acid reflux around three years ago which almost culminated in Barrett’s Oesophagus… (Oesophageal cancer) so should count myself fortunate…
This last is my greatest concern, when I wake in the morning my voice is fine but throughout the day it weakens to the extent that I'll make every excuse not to answer a 'phone which is one of the principal reasons for my current feeling of isolation although I've always been a loner since childhood: Never fearful of fistfights, always standing up for the underdog, never partaking in team sports: Rockclimbing HVS 5B-5C, Badminton, Squash, Tennis, Golf and running all distances from 10k up to 50k, Cycling up to 150k...all these sports leave one totally exposed and yet, why now do I feel so alone when I am surrounded by a loving and supportive Family and a brilliant group of close friends...beats me, maybe this is one of the reasons why I am opening up so much in my first posting but I've always been the one who tells the truth and shames the Devil...As a means of combating this weak voice I have just been assessed for LSVT...Lee Silverman Voice Training...my Voice Specialist reckons I'll be an ideal candidate, we shall see, watch this space...

You'll understand that I tend to meet issues head on, especially an insidious disease like Parkinson's, standing joke being, you won't die of Parkinson's but you will with a chainsaw in your hand...

I am not in denial although I didn't inform anybody apart from my Boss, European Operations Director of a large US Telco, my Wife and a couple of close friends I now realise that this was very short-sighted of me, you see my Daughter's wedding day was approaching, I hadn't told my Son or Daughter although my Daughter knew something was wrong; in my Son's case I could have walked round with an axe sticking out of my head before he might have noticed anything ...I promised my Wife I would inform everyone as soon as the wedding was out of the way, well, as my old Granny used to say, "Never put off 'til tomorrow what you can do today..." and she was dead right, the longer I left it, the more difficult it became until, that is, I joined a PDS WAG's (Wage Earning Group) in March 2008...Three days after attending a get together meal with twenty or so of them I felt so relaxed and above all confident in their company that I sat down and penned a semi-serious but truly heartfelt round robin which encapsulated exactly how I felt...I printed this two page liturgy on the inside of a humorous Spike Milligan card, the one where he's being carted off to his burial by a team of pall-bearers, drawn in stick characters, and sees him throwing back the lid of the coffin yelling..."I demand a second opinion...!" and with my inside note ending up with...' I am not asking anything of anyone other than their understanding and continued friendship, believe me, “Every little helps,” as the Old Lady said as she p____d in the sea..! ' Which I feel is an appropriate ending to my very first introductory missive to this forum...