<h1>I've got to admit I'm getting older</h1>

I remember taking a class in university, long ago, in which we were asked to predict a future event that had more than an even chance of coming true. I predicted my death in the year 2030, a date so far in the future, I couldn't imagine it. Now, as that date is getting closer, I wish I had chosen a later date, even if it means living with PD. Things are just getting good.

Dr. Seuss said something to the effect that you shouldn't be sad when a death happens, you should smile that a life had ever occurred. And, I do, smile I mean. But fighting the shaking palsy makes it harder to smile and its full effect really hasn't hit me yet (5 years in). Every so often I get a hint of the future, or so I think, but then I am forced to conclude I can't blame PD for every little ache or pain. Sometimes the rogue is stupidity or carelessness or whatever, but not PD.

For example, this past weekend, I was sitting on a plastic lawn chair in the yard at our cottage. I was talking to my daughter and my wife, who was holding our sick, year old, grandson. Suddenly, without warning, my chair was tipping over sideways. My wife yelled to my daughter, "help him" and she did, laughing the whole time. It seems I had placed my chair partially on a patch of clay that had grown soft with the heat and moist with water from the pool and one of the back legs on the chair had simply buried itself in the "mud". Thank goodness that was all it was! I told my wife I had thought it was PD affecting my balance. She had thought so as well. But the ending was happy and I had another memory to make me smile.

Still, I wish I had predicted my D.O.D. as 2040 or more.

I continue the good fight against my enemy. I walk. About 5 - 6 miles a couple of times a week (minimum 11,000 steps) and less the other 5 days, but never less than 3 miles. I aim for a minimum of 10,000 steps and my success is variable. I can tell you, I get slower each time. PD will slow you down and you might as well accept that.

The best place to walk for me, is at the lake, around 6AM. All is peaceful and quiet and nature is at its best. Today, while crossing a creaky, well-used, footbridge (cross at your own risk), I stopped to watch a beaver repairing its dam and all was well with my world. At that moment, I was neither dwelling on the past nor worrying about the future, I was entirely in the present. That's life as it should be.

Still, about that prediction. 2030 is only 15 years from now!!!!!

"And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong, I'm right. Where I belong I'm right. Where I belong"

Boundary Creek across from the marina in Winnipeg Beach, just after sunrise