'Doctors thought I had a stroke during birth but the truth was even more devastating'

When had tremors and could not lift her right foot after the birth of her sixth baby, she thought a stroke was to blame. She feared her high , combined with the difficult delivery of son Sebastian, were the cause. But then she was given the shocking news she had young onset at the age of 43.

Full-time mum Tracy, now 52, says: “I wondered if I’d had a mini-stroke, as I started having a major tremor 20 minutes after I had Sebastian. “I had extreme tiredness, which is normal, but I felt stiff, I couldn’t stand up for long periods of time and my right leg was dragging.”

Her symptoms had begun towards the end of her but Tracy, who lives near Alford, Lincs, was too busy focusing on Sebastian’s health issues to consider her own. She says: “Sebastian was born with a tumour on his liver, so we were in the hospital with him. I noticed the right side of my body just wasn’t working. I tried to use my foot to tap a baby rocker my son was in but I couldn’t even do that. I couldn’t lift my right foot up to do it.

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“When one of the doctors came in, I started having a tremor on my right side, I knew something wasn’t right. I didn’t say anything to my husband until we came home but dealing with my newborn and my symptoms at the same time was very difficult.”

Three months later, she told her GP, who sent her to A&E. “My blood pressure was so high they took me straight to resus,” Tracy
recalls. “They did a brain and MRI scan.” Medics ruled out a stroke and nine months later she received a diagnosis, making her one of 1,800 – 1.2% – of UK sufferers to have Parkinson’s under the age of 50. Tracy says hearing the neurologist deliver the news was a massive shock.

She says: “No one in my family has it and they said it was very unusual at my age. At the time, I honestly didn’t believe it.” Two cases of the disease are diagnosed an hour, which comes to 18,000 people a year, according to the charity Parkinson’s UK. “It’s very hard to diagnose but my test [DaT scan] showed a low dopamine level and it confirmed I did have young onset Parkinson’s disease,” she says.

Tracy, who was diagnosed in 2015, is one of around 153,000 people in the UK living with the disease. Coinciding with her diagnosis, her dad discovered he had secondary melanoma, a form of skin cancer, meaning she took her eye off her condition. “I didn’t do much research, I didn’t want to know about it,” she says. “I knew my dad had a terminal illness, he was all I cared about at the time.

“It wasn’t until I lost my dad in 2017 that my symptoms deteriorated. Stress or nervousness increases symptoms, and depression is one of them. My symptoms were causing me a lot more problems and I’d been seeing a Parkinson’s nurse. My medication has increased and increased.”

Her dad’s death prompted Tracy to get emotional support. She says: “I needed to talk to people my age, and that’s when I found groups, which helped me more than anything. I’ve got so many good friends in the Parkinson’s community now. I can’t tell you how much of a difference that makes. It can be depressing and my condition has deteriorated over the past 10 years.

“But I choose to think about what I can do, rather than what I can’t do. I do have bad days but it’s family and friends that help you through.” Tracy, who has a 31-year-old son and mixed sex twins of 29 from a previous marriage, as well as sons of 15 and 11 and a daughter of 23 with her husband, is speaking out to promote Parkinson’s Awareness Month.

Tracy, who also has stepdaughters, 33 and 29, and a stepson, 31, adds: “I now suffer from extreme slowness and stiffness. I wake up in absolute agony every morning and I can’t move. I shuffle and with shuffling you’ve got to be really careful, as I’ve fallen over a few times. “You lose so much agility and the simplest things, such as writing, you just can’t do.”

Tracy, who is married to retired farmer Stephen White, 62, sometimes also uses a walking stick. She adds: “Generally, within 20 minutes of taking medication, I start to feel OK. Then it’s a regime of taking medication every two to four hours. “It does give me the ability to do things with my children, being able to take them to school, for example.”

Tracy has set up a TikTok page, @tracywhite41, to raise awareness. She says: “I want to prove you can still have fun, even if you’re not very well.”