“Just in case!”

Just in case, is a phrase that has been used by me and to me all my life in many, many different scenarios. And I just thought I’d talk through a few of them. So when we were kids there was four children in the family, my three older brothers and I, and mum and dad. So that made a family of six. If we were going to go for any sort of outing in the car, mum would tell us to go to the toilet before we got in the car, just in case so we’re not caught short. Some of us would comply and some of us wouldn’t comply so much. And I was probably one of the ones that didn’t.

And so we would be 5-10 minutes off on our jaunt in the car and somebody would say, “Mum, I need to go to the toilet”. And she would say, “I told you all to go to the toilet just in case you needed to go on the trip! But of course, we would respond with “I didn’t need to go then!” Anyway, then we would have to find a toilet. And yeah, mum was never best pleased, but her philosophy was just in case please go to the toilet before we hit the road. And I found myself doing the same thing with my children. It’s funny how when you grow up you think mum’s rules and the way mum brings you up is not so good perhaps sometimes, but then you find yourself turning into your mother when you become one yourself.

When I had my oldest son, Adam, he was very hard to keep his milk down, let’s say, and he would projectile vomit. Lovely. And often I was the target. So, whenever I took him out somewhere, just in case I had a big blanket that I would throw over my shoulder, that would also cover my lap because I had learned the hard way that sometimes when he was sick, it was all in the crutch of my jeans and I’d be out and about and it’s not pleasant walking around like that, I can tell you. So just in case, I always had a blanket that was big enough to cover me when I was trying to burp this child.

So. There are lots of situations where you do things just in case.

I remember when my kids were young, and we used to be going somewhere, particularly if it was to a family event like Christmas or a family wedding or something like that, and I would get my children dressed and I’d try and keep them somewhere where I could see them so they wouldn’t get filthy.

As we were getting ready to go, I would get myself dressed, I’d probably have my underwear on and a dressing gown, and I would get the children looking clean and beautiful and waiting to be put in the car and to go to whatever event we were attending. And so I would wear my, undergarments and my dressing gown , up until the last minute, just in case one of my lovely little children was to put mucky hands on me, be sick on me, or cause some other calamity that would ruin my outfit. So just in case I stayed in my dressing gown until the very last minute.

So, you know, as we get older and, when you’ve had three children, as I have, you know, sometimes your bladder control unfortunately is not so great. Outing myself here. And if you sneeze too much or cough too much, then it can get a little bit dicey. I know when I had a cough recently when I was recovering from my back operation and wasn’t able to move very fast, sometimes a coughing fit could have dire consequences, and so I would always have a pad of some sort in my knickers just in case I had a coughing fit, to give me enough time to get to the toilet and not have an accident.

And I’m sure a lot of you people who are of a similar age and have been through similar things would identify with it. I certainly wouldn’t go bouncing on a trampoline or running, because I wouldn’t do those things just in case, I should have a little bit of an accident and embarrass myself.

I went to a bowling tournament the other day and I was really nervous about this bowling tournament and so I had, you know, as you do, I had the nervous wees, and other things that I won’t go into too with too much detail. I was really, really nervous about this bowling tournament because it was my very first. We’d had some coaching over two fortnights and mine didn’t go as well as I would’ve liked. But anyway, we had the coaching, and we were having this tournament, which I’d put my name down for, so I would be playing with people I didn’t know, at a club I wasn’t familiar with on a green, I wasn’t familiar with, and I’m also trying to figure out how my body works.

So, because I was so nervous and because I’d gone to the loo so many times before I even left the house, I gave myself a bit of insurance if you like. I had some basically incontinence pants that I had got just when I had those coughing fits and was not quick enough to get to the toilet sometimes, and so I had them kind of stashed away and hadn’t needed them, hadn’t used them, but I kept them just in case.

Just in case I might need them someday. So, yep. What I did was when I went to the tournament, I wore the inconti pants just in case I needed to go to the toilet. If I didn’t have much time to get there, and there was a queue because, as per usual, there are never enough loos in the ladies and there’s always a loo queue when you need to go. So just in case I came across that scenario and I didn’t get to the Loo quite as quickly as I would’ve liked to, and inconti pants might’ve saved the day.

So there’s many different things that we can use just in case for, and when it comes to medications, the medications can be really important to somebody with Parkinson’s or anybody that needs any medications on a regular basis. So. I often, , try to take my medications with me for the next medication that’s due. So I may have an appointment, say at 10 o’clock somewhere, and I should be home for 12, which is when I usually take my lunchtime tablets between 12 and one and so I’ll think, “Well, it’s a10 o’clock appointment, I should be back here by 11. It’s only a local appointment”. But just in case, I will usually take my lunchtime medications with me, but you just don’t know if something might happen and you don’t have your lunchtime meds with you, and that could be a bit challenging. So just in case, if I’m going out in the morning before lunch, I’ll take my lunchtime tablets with me just in case my system gets mucked up by something that I can’t prepare for.

One of the other things that I do is I worry about my medication wearing off when I’m playing bowls, so I will take my medications at a different time than I would normally. So in that scenario where I’m bowling and I’m using more energy than normal, I will take my medications.differently. My morning meds I usually take at six. For the tournament, I took them about 10.30am and it didn’t seem to be too much of a problem for me, but it just meant that it would get me through till the break at one o’clock and then I would take my lunchtime meds at about 2.30pm so that would get me through to 4.00pm.

And it seemed to work because I just didn’t want to take the risk of not being medicated through the busiest time, just in case things wore off and I wasn’t able to manage. So that was one of my scenarios of when I needed to be mindful that I needed to make some contingency plans for if that medication should run out.

Another thing that we do, just in case, is when we go to the UK or any overseas travel, we will put our medications in our hand luggage, and this is especially essential medications, any heart medications, any blood pressure medications, any of those essentials that you need to take, whatever time zone you’re in, in whatever way you take them.

So we will put them in our hand luggage and we have been known to take half of what we need or half of what we’re taking of each other’s and each other’s hand luggage so that if somehow by some twist of fate, one of the lots of hand luggage goes missing, we’ve got another one just in case we need to access those meds.

And they haven’t all gone with the hand luggage that has been mislaid or taken for some reason. So that’s always handy. We also prepare ahead of going to the uk. If we go for six weeks, we might take eight to 10 weeks worth of medications with us just in case something should happen. We should have a medical event. Or there’s an earthquake. There’s anything that happens. That means we are not just relying on taking the medications for the time that we envisage being away, but just in case we have our trip extended, we take 2-4 weeks’ additional medications with us. So, we know that we have the medications that we absolutely need, and then some in case there’s some unforeseen event.

We will also take a list of medications and dosages with us as well, so that if we need them replaced for any reason, we can show what medications we have.

Also when talking about medications, I take a paracetamol and codeine mix para codeine, I think it’s called, and it is for the pain in my feet that I have currently. So a combination of paracetamol and codeine. But the problem is I have always had trouble taking round flat tablets. For some reason they want to stick in my throat and so sometimes I’ve taken them with yogurt. That helps. But I’ve always been better at taking capsules. So when I’m taking the medications, if I’m going to be out, I will take paracetamol on its own because it’s in capsule form and I will take that because I know that I can take that usually without any problems.

The other thing I do, is just in case I have a problem with swallowing the tablets when I’m at home, I will take them first before I take my other medications, my Parkinson’s medications, just in case I do gag and be sick, with these tablets, it has happened before that I’ve done it the other way round that I’ve taken my Parkinson’s meds and then I’ve taken the paracodeine and I’ve been sick and I’ve lost the lot, and so I have no Parkinson’s meds on board. No paracetamol, no codeine. It’s all gone down the drain and it’s all gone wrong. So, yeah, so these are some of my little strategies that I use just in case and many, I know I’ve said those words just in case all throughout this, but just in case , some unplanned event or situation occurs that I have no control over, I try to have a Plan B just in case life goes pear shaped.