Wearing two hats

I am in the strange situation of wearing two hats – one for Gaucher and one for Parkinson’s disease. I have often been asked which disease do I suffer from the most. This is difficult to answer. I would have to say on a daily basis, Parkinson’s is much more debilitating and as it is a degenerative disease, medications have to be constantly changed or doses altered. However, when Gaucher decides to play havoc with my bones, the pain can be extreme, occasionally requiring hospitalisation, receiving morphine to dull the agonising pain. Thankfully since I have been on enzyme replacement therapy (VIPRIV) these events have occurred less. When suffering from a chronic disease or two! a sense of humour is so important – without this I don’t know how I would get through the tough times. Laughter they say is the best medicine, and sometimes life can get so difficult and become absurd, that you've got to laugh! If you would like to take a look at one of my poems entitled “ You've got to laugh”, it has been put up on LadybugflightsBooks Website. In my recent oral presentation which I gave in Rome, I said "There's a silver lining in everything, you've just got to know how to see it." I wish you all a good weekend, and hope you can see your silver lining!