Next Captain’s Chat we caught up with Alun Smith to talk to him about Golf, his diagnosis and how the Welsh team, are preparing, before he captains their Parkinson’s golfers at the Sport Parkinson’s Four Nations Golf Tournament in October.
How are you feeling today?
Yeah, feeling good and being the gym this morning, then 20 minutes on the runner and 20 minutes on the bike, and, I haven’t showered yet, so it’s probably a good thing this isn’t an in person interview.
When I was growing up I always thought that scratch ‘n’ sniff tv would be a thing, do you remember the cards? Probably a good thing it hasn’t happened yet!
That’s true
I guess you’re a big fan of exercise and Parkinson’s? Do you feel that that it helps? How how does that kind of come round to you?
Yeah, it does massively for me and it’s always been part of my life I played rugby until I was 34. Yeah, that could well be the cause of the Parkinson’s with all the bumps on the head, but then I finished playing rugby I got into cycling and then shortly after got diagnosed – cycling was a big part for probably 10 years – and then I had to give cycling up, because my stamina and balance weren’t good enough. So I got into other things. Obviously things are taken away from you. Certain doors shut, so try to open another door too, just to keep the the momentum going. You know, so I do. I now do circuits and three years ago I was asked to get into golf.
Can you talk us through your diagnosis and how that how that was the kind of first symptoms that you felt?
Yes, I remember it very well. It was my 40th birthday. A big group of us had gone on holiday and I I’ve always I got up and gone for a run first thing in the morning. Just something I’ve always done from the rugby days and I noticed that my left ankle was was sort of going over on itself. So I’d stop after a couple of miles and stretch it and it would be fine, and so that was the the first sign looking back. Then I started getting a little twitch in my left wedding ring finger and I started getting a lot of stiffness in my left shoulder. So I went to a physio, she said I had a rotator cuff impingement and that I’d need a clean up. So they booked me in for a for an operation.
I went in for the operation and afterwards the orthopaedic surgeon that there wasn’t much wrong with his shoulder and but that he thought that it was a lot tighter than it should have been given the condition of the joint. So he wanted to refer to neurologists, I was naturally suspicious to his intention. Anyway, I went down to see him straight from that meeting to the consultant neurologist and he did a the barrage of little tests that I’m sure everybody knows about and he said “I can tell you, Mr Smith, that you have Parkinson’s Disease”. To which I responded “Um, surely it could be nerve damage? I just had an operation after playing rugby for 20 odd years. Surely it could be a trapped nerve or how can you say that on the back of a very small examination?”. And he said, “OK, well, let’s leave it for six months. Come back and I’ll confirm the diagnosis”.
So I didn’t say anything to anybody. I didn’t tell my wife, and I didn’t tell anybody. So I I just lived with it for six months and then I just went about my my daily life, you know.
Six months later I got an appointment with the the same doctor. My wife said, “I’m coming with you” – I said “There is no need.”. She came anyway and did the same test again – after which he said, “There you go, that has confirmed my diagnosis”. To which she responded “which is what?” and didn’t speak to me for a couple of days after that. In hindsight I probably should have told them but there you go. That was 12 years ago
That must have been difficult?
Yeah, well there there was actually one more step that I that I sort of forgotten, I had the the twitchy finger and the and the bad ankle in the stiff shoulder before I had any operations, or the orthopaedic stuff. I went to my GP and said, bearing mind I’ve never been to the GP before in my life. So, I just pointed these three things out. I said “Are they connected? They’re not particularly bothering me. Well, my work is getting concerned and I just said I’d come along and have a chat with you and see if it was anything.”
I wear a a nice tag watch with it with a stainless steel bracelet. I suppose it’s it’s quite quite heavy, but anyway he said lose the flash watch, take, take your trainers off and put a a pair of proper heel shoes on and I think you’ll find all your troubles will go away. I had been reluctant about going to the GP surgery in the first place, it just confirmed my fear of the place so I I told my wife I was never ever going to the GP again.
Who introduced you to golf?
It was the same guy like my best mate been just follow the same path through life together and we when I got diagnosed; he immediately said right, we need a challenge So our first challenge was we’re gonna cycle. . He said we’re going to cycle from London to Paris, so we’re going to join one of those organized groups. So 320 miles in three days, or whatever it was. We trained for about six months for that, did it and then I had to give the bike. He then tells me I need so something to replace i and and he’s always played golf, that’s been his passion since since he finished playing rugby and I just hadn’t gone down that road. I didn’t think I’d enjoy it. Didn’t think I’d be good at it.
