<h1> Parkinson's and Passion</h1>

You thought I was going to talk about that, you know, other kind of passion. Sorry folks, I am going to talk about how passion (I told you, not that kind) affects my symptoms.

Let me start off by assuring you the symptoms of my PD, as far as shaking goes, are not noticeable. The drugs are very effective at keeping them at bay. That's good. Right! Of course it is good, except for the times when it isn't, like when my passion gets out of control and the drugs retreat and my body starts the hippy, hippy shake.

Still not talking about the good passion - male/female passion, if you know what I mean. I am talking about the Winnipeg Jets of the National Hockey League, a team for which I am very passionate. I mope when they lose and get pessimistic when they win (in this arena, I think optimism is a delusion). So far this season, they are sitting around the 500 mark.

Last night, my pessimism was put to the test. The other team scored 59 seconds into the game."I knew it!" I wailed, "Another loss coming up". My pointing finger started to jump. I sat anxiously through the first period, but the score remained 1-0 after the first 20 minutes and my pessimism had a firm hold on my PD. My right hand was trembling. I grabbed the remote. Holding something tightly always seems to help calm the tremor. Finally, in the second period, the Jets began to score - 3 goals and I was elated. But, with elation came enhancement of my predicament. The muscles in my lower right arm were starting to "fire" in sequence, creating a sort of ripple effect.

The third period commenced and the other team started scoring. This was getting ridiculous, my right arm was at full ripple. I had to put my right hand under my pillow, trapping the shaking. Three minutes left to play. I could feel it in my left hand. I should try to avoid the ending by watching something else. I switched channels. That didn't work. Back to the contest. They score with 13 seconds left in the game to tie it up. I am like a bowl of jelly on a jack hammer. Fortunately the Jets scored 59 seconds into overtime to win the game and within 2 or 3 minutes, the drugs took their rightful place and my body came to a rest.. All was good, but I wondered why it went bonkers over a hockey game!

Passion did it. That fan kind of passion got me going. The other kind of good passion gets me ........ well....never mind. It's none of your business.

I throw out the question. In all cases can "passion" be just another word for "stress". I had to look it up and found the following:

We all know that living a stressful lifestyle can take its toll, making us age faster and making us more susceptible to the cold going around the office. The same appears to be true of neurons in the brain. According to a new Northwestern Medicine study published Nov. 10 in the journal Nature, dopamine-releasing neurons in a region of the brain called the substantia nigra lead a lifestyle that requires lots of energy, creating stress that could lead to the neurons' premature death. Their death causes Parkinson's disease. "Why this small group of neurons dies in Parkinson's disease is the core question we struggled with," says lead author D. James Surmeier, the Nathan Smith Davis Professor and chair of physiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "Our research provides a potential answer by showing this small group of neurons uses a metabolically expensive strategy to do its job. This 'lifestyle' choice stresses the neurons' mitochondria and elevates the production of superoxide and free radicals -- molecules closely linked to aging, cellular dysfunction and death."

The lesson here is enjoy the hockey game. It is just a game as we are often told. Who knows? The Jets might go on to win the Stanley Cup. They might not, but who really cares? The corollary to this try to avoid stress, avoid passion, avoid distress, avoid being a PWP, avoid dwelling on the future. It will all work out. In the words of our leader MJF:

There is a rule in acting called, “Don’t play the result.” If you have a character who’s going to end up in a certain place, don’t play that until you get there. Play each scene and each beat as it comes. And that is what you do in life. You don’t play the result. Michael J. Fox

Here is the pessimist's anthem, just for the heck of it. "Another day older and deeper in debt" (Tennessee Ernie Ford)