Movers and Shakers: Season Finale
But we'll be back...
We only planned to do ten editions of Movers and Shakers but somehow we have ended up doing twelve and now we’re going to take a short break before returning with a bang in September - more on that later.
For our season finale we decided we would have no guests but instead delve into the mail bag and chew the fat about some of the messages we have received. Most of them have been extraordinarily positive, a common theme being what a joy it is to have Parkinson’s discussed so openly.
That reaction has come from family and carers as well as “Parkies” themselves. Sophie was typical:
“Thank you for making this podcast. My darling Mum was diagnosed with PD about five years ago, and with a brother and father who aren’t that talkative at the best of times I felt quite alone with the feelings and questions I had. It’s nice to no longer feel that way.”
We have also learned from you things about Parkinson’s that we didn’t know. Carolyn tells us that her brother John uses something called an apomorphine pump, given him as an alternative to Deep Brain Stimulation (featured in episode 4) because it seems DBS may not be advisable if you suffer, as he does, from hallucinations.
“The pump gives John medication every 5 minutes. It comes on at 4am increases dose from 8am to 10pm and drops down at 11pm. It needs to be finely tuned (as with DBS) but John no longer freezes, his movement is good and he has halved the number of pills he takes.'“
Paul Mayhew-Archer reads out a letter advocating mindfulness as useful for “Parkies” and wonders why none of us has tried it. “Hello trees, hello flowers..” chimes in Jeremy Paxman, and Paul issues a challenge for listeners to come up with a way of describing mindfulness that would make Jeremy want to do it.
Judge Nicholas Mostyn brings us back down to earth by reading a letter telling us that we need to be mindful of our privileged status in life. One listener wrote that she's been feeling uncomfortable: “It started with talk of personal trainers, personal assistants, then moved onto provision of ‘chaises longues’ and this week's discovery that the judge’s physician is the top man in the field.”
Another correspondent Carl says he loves the podcast but “having just listened to your podcast on exercise,” wrote Carl, “I found myself more and more irritated. Personal trainers, skiing, horse riding - we don’t all have access to these exercises, particularly personal trainers who many cannot afford.”
We agree we are lucky: “We're all well off, we're influential, we're quite used to getting our way,” says the judge. “But we are what we are. We obviously shouldn't try and reinvent ourselves .” It is , however, something we need to bear in mind in planning season two, when we will try to get a wider range of voices in.
The question of what shape the podcast should take provoked a fierce debate on our Facebook group with one person bemoaning the fact that we have expert guests: “I was happier to listen to your earlier banter than to have neurological specialists add to the terror. If we need this, YouTube and other sources have all the grisly detail of living with Parkinson's.”
But most people disagreed - another Facebook contributor said their father had Parkinson’s and felt less alone in dealing with it:
“The change in him since the podcast started is significant. His own consultant is nothing like as informative as those guesting on the pod. It's as though he gets a free consultation every week.”
Mark Mardell and I had both wondered after the recording of the medication episode whether it had been too dense and difficult to follow - but it turned out to be very popular. Mark thinks we’ve just about managed to get the right mix of fun and facts:
“We made the decision at an early stage that we would have interesting guests. But we always had the intention of striking a balance between our original pub chat theme and the provision of some useful information. And I think we've done pretty well in striking a good balance.”
There will now be a pause over the summer - although we may make one bonus episode in July from the World Parkinson’s Congress in Barcelona which Paul, Gillian and I are attending.
We return in September with our first live show, to be recorded in the historic Middle Temple Hall in London. I had intended to plug the tickets for this event - but by the evening of the day they went on sale they had all gone. We may need to look at a bigger venue next time.
We concluded series one by reading a poem written by Gillian Lacey-Solymar. After we had completed a recent recording she suffered a freezing attack so bad that she lost her voice. We were all worried about her but a few days later she shared with us a poem she had written in the middle of a sleepless night. It was called The Parkie God and we decided it summed up the spirit of Movers and Shakers and would make a fitting finale.
THE PARKIE GOD
The Parkie god
Is a strange sort of sod
Not all knowing
Nor all seeing
He’s an odd type of god
And a weird sort of being
If feeling malevolent
He’ll make us move
In mysterious ways,
If only to prove
That he has the power,
A power we lack
And which it appears
We are not getting back.
So we shuffle around
And on good days we dance
And those who have balance
May take a firm stance
And the rest of us (those who have voices) complain.
Or, we suffer in silence
Like Brits in the rain
No, sorry, we don’t, you almost forgot
To “suffer” is banned. It’s not part of the plot.
It has to be struck from our vocab – be gone
From the Parkies’ increasingly blank lexicon
So, no, we don’t suffer, we simply exist.
While the pain (which does not grasp this ban) still persists
So what do we do - we meet at the pub
Where we form ourselves into a grumbling hub
And when moaning is over
We all shuffle home
Where we carry on shuffling
All on our own.
Hey - we can’t leave it there.
On a miserable note
It’s true, we all have it.
All in the same boat,
But the boat isn’t sinking
So please do not panic
We’re quite optimistic
It’s not the Titanic
So let us conclude with this final idea
Without you listeners both far and near
The podcast would.be just us six in the pub
But movers and shakers, we are all in that club
Thank you for listening
Now - what to do?
Wait a few weeks and then : season two!
"We're all well off, we're influential, we're quite used to getting our way,” says the judge. “But we are what we are. We obviously shouldn't try and reinvent ourselves .”
Why not? It's worth a try.
I’m going to miss you lot over the summer. Enjoy