‘I’m not lying down to this’: Perth action gran isn’t letting Parkinson’s​ get the better of her

PARKINSON’S lives with me, I don’t live with Parkinson’s.

That’s the motto of Doreen Brown and they’re certainly words she lives by.

Doreen managed her local Salvation Army shop in Perth until she had to give up regular work in 2014.

But since then, she’s become a bit of an action gran — skydiving and abseiling off the Falkirk Wheel — while still keeping busy in a local charity shop.

She’s an active member of the Parkinson’s UK Perth branch and runs church and Parkinson’s UK coffee mornings.

“I enjoyed the skydiving — but I wouldn’t do it again!” laughs Doreen.

“I’d do the abseiling again, in fact I’m going off the Forth Rail Bridge later this year.

“With the Falkirk Wheel, the rope was fine, it was that initial step towards it that was the worst, but once I was past that, it didn’t bother me.

“Mind you, we had to climb over this railing to get to the edge and I thought: ‘How am I going to get over that?’

“That scared me more than walking down it!

“My granddaughter Olivia probably just thinks she’s got a mad granny, but she’s only about 20 months and goes with the flow.”

Doreen has also made two trips to do voluntary work in Kenya with The Gloag Foundation, and she admits: “It was fantastic. An eye-opener, but just wonderful.

“We were down in Mashimone, a real slum area of Nairobi, and there’s a school there where we did a holiday camp.

“I was involved with the craft side of things, but they did sport and Bible teaching, too.

“And in the afternoon we maybe fed the babies in the orphanage back in Nairobi, or played games with the kids.

“So I think it’s fair to say I’m not lying down to this.”

Doreen was diagnosed about 10 years ago after noticing a slight tremor in her arm.

“My kids said to me: ‘Stop shaking, Mum!’ but I said: ‘Oh, it’s just old age and I’m cold!’” she recalls.

“I turned 50 about that time and one day, a few months down the line, I thought I’d better go and see about this.

“I was off on a Monday and I thought I’d just go in and see if there was a doctor’s appointment.

“I was very rarely at the doctor and I saw this one and she prodded and probed and said: ‘I’ll go and get another opinion but what do you think it is?’.

“I said: ‘Well, Parkinson’s has a bit of a tremor, has it not?’

“She replied: ‘That’s for old folk!’

“So she went out for that second opinion and came back and said: ‘I think it might be a brain tumour.’

“Within two days, I was up to the hospital for a scan that showed it wasn’t a brain tumour, and two weeks later I was seen by a consultant and I was diagnosed.

“It didn’t take long for me to get a diagnosis, but it took about two years before I got stabilised on the medication.

“That was just them trying different things on me and I either kept fainting or falling asleep,” recalls Doreen.

“Everyone’s different with Parkinson’s, you never get two people the same, but now I’ve been stabilised on a variety of drugs for a long time and I just plod on.

“It’s not usually the tablets that are the problem, it’s the side effects that are worse.

“I’ve heard of people who end up spending excessively and things like that, their behaviour changes.

“My main one is tiredness. If I’m driving, I can only do short distances without having to stop for a snooze or a walkabout to wake myself up.

“I am slower at doing things, but that’s just developed over the years.

“The medication masks my symptoms,” Doreen explains.

“I don’t have a tremor now, that only appears if I’m poorly.

“Recently I was in hospital for a day when I developed breathing problems and my tremor kicked in.

“It’s just when your system’s a bit run down.

“I do have good and bad days like most people with Parkinson’s.

“Sometimes, I struggle to get out of my bed, but the next day, I’m jumping out of an aeroplane!

“I’ve had this for a decade now and when people ask what I’ll do in the future, I just say: ‘Keep on going!’”

This week is Parkinson’s Awareness Week. As current drugs do not slow down, stop or reverse the condition, people with Parkinson’s urgently need a breakthrough to help with treatment.

For more information visit www.parkinsons.co.uk or call their helpline free on 0808 800 0303.

Doreen has set up a Just Giving page to raise funds.