ON SHAKY GROUND
At 11:03 AM on Tuesday 03 September 2024 I developed a tremor. It hasn’t left yet. I think it highly unlikely it ever will now.
It was triggered by shock
The news of the breakup from my girlfriend was so shocking and so unexpected and so mysterious and still – 56 days later – I have no answers to all my questions. I am never likely to get answers. I started shaking when I got the news and it has not stopped since. There are degrees – sometimes I can barely stop my cup of tea from spilling over and sometimes it’s just a very light tremor that is only obvious if I’m holding a pencil. But always, it is there now.
My hands and shoulders shake. My head and voice shakes. I can feel it everywhere.
My father had a tremor too. As did his identical twin. And my cousin. I think one of my sons has a mild tremor. It runs in the family and is hereditary.
It is called an Essential Tremor
I am sure I was always destined to develop an essential tremor as it is in my genes no doubt. For me, it has just come on very suddenly and unexpectedly. Whereas for my father, it developed slowly over many years.
My father’s tremor was bad. It cost him his career as a professional flautist. Eventually, in his early seventies I believe, he had surgery called deep brain stimulation that slowed his tremor right down for many years and he developed a much higher quality of life as a result. It involves a (hopefully) highly skilled neurosurgeon to crack your head open and stick wires down onto the brain to stop the tremor. At the time my father had it, he also had two battery packs surgically implanted into his chest. Although I think these days it may be done differently. I do not know. But I confess, the thought of having my head cracked open and wires stuck in it is very depressing and not something I want to consider right now.
There is every chance I will live well into my nineties. Longevity is abundant for the women in my family. I am 58 as I write this, so that is a lot of years to be spilling cups of tea. And if the tremor just deteriorates in all that time I don’t really know what will happen. It can, in some circumstances, become completely debilitating.
I have not seen a doctor yet
That is next on my to-do list. To seek medical advice. As this tremor was triggered by shock and one of the treatments is to avoid stress I’m not sure where to go with all that. Really, all of us try to avoid stress all the time anyway. I don’t know a single person who seeks out stressful situations on purpose so being told to avoid stress is just a pointless conversation. I do try and avoid it. Sometimes it finds me anyway and I have no say in the matter.
Grief is a type of stress and I know I will be grieving the loss of my two most important relationships for a very long time. Many many months at the very least. I have experienced estrangement before and it is heartbreakingly, gut wrenchingly awful. This is my first, and will be my only, experience of marital separation. It is no walk in the park but as we are managing to maintain a strong friendship there is not a high level of shock involved anymore. But we are both still grieving loss and navigating extremely significant life changes. So I am trying to process a lot of grief right now.
Grief is a stress and stress exacerbates the tremor
I feel trapped in this reality right now. It is only time that will help the grief and the stress. But I have this really strong feeling that as I absorb the grief and learn to live with it more easily, I will still have a tremor.
People comment on it. Sometimes at work I can’t move the mouse properly for the computer. I’ve had a patient ask about my tremor. Friends notice. Family notice. It is visually obvious now.
Interestingly enough, the tremor is better when at rest. So if I’m sitting watching television it is much less noticeable. I notice it hugely when I try and type on my phone and right now as I tap away on my laptop.
I don’t really drink alcohol – just on rare celebratory occasions – but apparently alcohol can help. Just a glass of wine here or there. But I’m not sure I want to soothe my problems with alcohol. I also associate drinking with happiness and while happiness is absent in my life I have no desire to drink. At all.
I also understand there are medications that can help. One is propanolol which is a beta blocker. I’m so hesitant to take a beta blocker as exercise is so important to my physical and psychological health and I don’t want the heart rate repercussions that come with beta blockers. There is another medication called primidone that I know nothing about. When I speak to the doctor I hope they will advise me on appropriate treatment options and whether or not another medication will help me.
I currently take nine pills every night
I am 58 years old. My grandmother died at 97 years of age and took none whatsoever. I confess it bothers me immensely that I am a walking rattling pharmacy. Taking yet another medication that will have yet more interactions with all the rest may be a necessary evil, but I won’t like it. Not one bit. But I will also accept the unpleasant reality if it will ease the tremor. Even if only for a few years.
Shock does awful things to the body. I never ever expected to hear that news. And I never expected the tremor to still be here almost two months later. I had secretly hoped that the family tremor would bypass me. Alas, that is not the case. I now live on shaky ground.
