I'm still sad.

 My Dad died in October. I'm still sad.

This is long. Sorry.

Multiple System Atrophy. (MSA)

MSA is insidious. It is complicated to diagnose due to the fact that its onset and early progression very closely resembles that of Parkinson’s disease. It is only as symptoms progress and change that a diagnosis of MSA can be made, and often it is at a very late stage of progression.

From what we have been told, there are about 2500 people in Australia who have been diagnosed with MSA and the estimated life expectancy for someone who has been diagnosed with MSA is between 5 and 10 years, but, by the time MSA can be confirmed, a lot of that time is already gone.

My Dad had, perhaps 5 years ago, gone to two different doctors and raised his concern about the onset of Parkinson’s disease after developing a tremor in one arm. He was fobbed off. I have never forgiven those two doctors. (Long story, won’t rehash.)

In early 2020, after a night my family would rather forget, Dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease by a physician at the hospital who had never met Dad until that morning, so management of this became our priority. Parkinson’s disease is incurable, but we had to do our best with what we had to help Dad to be comfortable.

On October 19, 2021, after Dad’s health had started to deteriorate rapidly, we were told that he had MSA and that from that day forward any treatment and care would shift from a quantity of life focus to a quality of life focus, because, due to the aggressiveness of the progression, Dad’s condition was now considered to be “life-limiting” – a fancy way of saying “terminal” – in other words, he would not recover, and while the medical people could not give us firm information as to how much time Dad might still have, the shift in focus for his care suggested less, not more.

We lost Dad on October 20, 12 months, and a matter of hours after we were told of his diagnosis of MSA.

It is not known how MSA develops, whether there is a random genetic issue that causes it, a family link, or whether environmental factors are involved, but MSA is considered to be a rare disease partly because it is difficult to diagnose due to the fact that many of the symptoms associated with the onset and progression of MSA very closely resemble those suggestive of Parkinson’s disease.

I love you, Dad.