THE SMELL OF BURNT TOAST WAS A SIGN OF A SERIOUS HEALTH PROBLEM

WHEN Gareth Evans hit his mid 40s, smelling burnt toast that wasn’t there and crying at work for no apparent reason were just two of the signs of a deeper health issue.

- SHAURYA SHAURYA

Keen rugby player Gareth, who worked as a carpenter at the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, was active and happy in his work and personal life.

But the usually cheerful and motivated worker suddenly found himself showing up to his job feeling sad, or randomly crying at work.

He would also feel his arm twitch, or smell the aroma of burnt toast.

Nothing made any sense but, as doctors soon found out, he had been living with a disease that has no cure: Parkinson’s.

The depression was one of the first symptoms Gareth noticed but, without a diagnosis, he had been at a loss.

"Depression... it comes with Parkinson’s," he explained.

"I didn’t understand it. I'd go into work and I'd feel very sad and I would cry.

"I would come home and I'd cry in the shower, but I was very good at hiding it, didn’t talk about it, and didn’t get any help and that just got worse and worse.

"I just knew there was something wrong. I just didn’t know what."

It was only when the physical symptoms started that Gareth asked for help.

The 57-year-old said: "I worked for 34 years for the health service. So I was actually at work and I looked down onto my left arm, and I could see the muscle just on the forearm... it was twitching, twitching a lot.

"I couldn’t control it, couldn't stop it and I had this for a while, you know, for a couple of days.

"So actually, I went to see a friend of mine who worked in the hospital and I asked her advice and she told me I needed to get it sorted."

Gareth finally went to his GP and was referred to a consultant at the University Hospital of Wales.

He was given his diagnosis on September 21, 2018, after which he says he “cried like a baby”.

While he now has an answer for his previous symptoms, the diagnosis and the condition itself have understandably had a huge impact on his life.