Up the snakes and down the ladders

My life is turning upside down.  I've got PD and my wife  had cancer (her operation was a success).  The problem is, our family has always been lucky.  Somebody once described us by saying, "You guys could fall in a bucket of shit and come out smelling like roses".  I can handle the PD and I expect in 5 years time, significant progress will be made in all brain disorders.  Therefore, my condition has never really bothered me, once I came to terms with it; but, when my wife came home from the doctor and announced, "It is not good news", I felt the earth shudder.  But even that has not dampened my optimism for either of us.  Our future's so bright, we have to wear shades (to quote somebody).

Now, if only I can find a bucket of shit.

Last week's totals show the 2nd greatest country in the lead

United States	146
Canada	55
United Kingdom	28
Germany	10
France	10
Australia	9
Italy	5
Brazil	3
Greece	1 year to date is 57,784 thanks for tuning in.

Viewing a movie is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

Okay.  Vivid Dream #5 or so, subtitled "My friend the switch dodger"

My fiend, who shall be referred to as "B" herein, got a job, post-retirement, teaching students in a dark cave (subconscious Plato maybe).  I was jealous of B's initiative and wanted in.  At first he was ready to accommodate me but when I told him I wanted the students to turn their desks around so they could see the movie playing at the front of the cave, he became resistant.

"School is no place for movies!  Their desks will remain as is and if you don't like it, shove off"

Such language!  I was determined to impose my advanced methodology on him and have the students reverse their desks in order to see the light cast by the movie projector.  There was no movie currently playing but the projector's light would give the young people a different experience.  I decided to violently force B to change his philosophy and so I sought out my father's military, ceremonial sword   and went on the hunt.

Unfortunately, B's body guards, two young women, one an experienced poisoner, the other an experienced swordsman using a straight blade sword and one of those curved weapons like you see on TV, had learned of my plan.  They were waiting for me at the mouth of the cave.  Just as I glanced into the dark, only to see the class looking in the wrong direction, B's body guards jumped me and surrounded me (B had joined in the fight but was only using a library card & and erlenmeyer flask).  A terrible fight ensued but I was holding my own.  My sword blocked every attempt they made.  I parried viciously and accurately but I did no damage and I was getting tired.  My arms began to flail in all directions.  With one last roar, I put all my energy into one last parry only to....

"Wake up.  Wake up.  You are having a dream."  My wife said and repeated, "It's only a dream."

"I was sword fighting," I explained.

"Oh, that explains the noises and the flashing of arms.  Go back to sleep."

As I lay back down, unsuccessfully trying to recapture and restart the dream, I had to admit to myself I had failed.  For all I know, those students still have not seen the light, doomed as they are, to face the darkness of the cave for eternity.

Stand by for a sequel. These parkie dreams are unpredictable.

Home is the sailor, home from sea

When our family crossed the ocean on the Empress of Britain so many years ago, one of our survival abilities was to learn how to walk on a ship, particularly in rough seas.  We managed to get our sea legs quite quickly and strolls around the ship still were adventures.

                                                 The Empress of Britain (1955 I think)

Being young, following a brutal bout of seasickness, we would go to places children should have been wary of, but that is for a later blog.  We explored every inch of that ship, using our land legs to bounce from wall to wall until we got our sea legs - a very strange phenomenon akin to not being in control of your body and then regaining it with a kind of upright duck walk.

I am entering a phase in PD where l need my sea legs back.  There are moments when I am glad we have walls, so that I can carom off them to get to my destination.  This is common in the morning but when I take my meds, l start to feel normal again - legs work like they should, no pinball action of bouncing from wall to wall.  I start to feel good once more, like when we got over the seasickness and were able to conduct our explorations.

I want to still be able to explore but I am a realist.  PD may someday retire that little gift, removing my ability to walk; but, as the captain of the Empress of Britain correctly predicted, when the sea got rough, there was coming a slow wind that would quiet the sea.  Now, I too can sense the coming of a cool, calming breeze.  My "spidy sense" thinks it is bringing with it, a cure.

In the meantime, I still have a need to explore while my legs still work!  Too bad there are no ocean liners; it is difficult to explore airplanes.  Seen one, seen them all.

The Wac-a-mole dissertation et al

Ups & downs

Two parts of my body are vying for my attention, my legs versus my brain.  I am sitting in a chair. "Time to stand", I tell myself and I start to rise.  When I am just about upright, my brain (or what's left of it) intervenes.  "Now you hold on there a second.  We have a problem.  I need more dopamine for all this to happen, SIT DOWN NOW."

I have no choice in the matter. I am unceremoniously pulled back into the chair by a force, one of my brain's henchmen, that has obviously been working out at the "force gym".  It is just too strong but I immediately try again, hoping to catch the force unawares,  The result is the same.

This madness is repeated after a third and fourth attempts.  Finally, I put down the books I was carrying, relax, sit up, spread my legs, bend forward and leading with my head, I move downward a pinch and then outward and upward.  Success.

Something tells me the next time won't be easier.  I will pop up and down, up and down, up and down, like in that circus game where you try to smack the rodent on its head when it pops up.  I keep expecting a metaphorical club at any moment.

Slip, Sliding Away

To change the topic,  I had a PD dream last night in which I found myself holding a tennis racquet (racket) inside a large mansion.  It had all the finery of a Downton Abbey.  Maybe it was Downton Abbey.  A woman appears.  She also has a racquet, but it has no strings;  She announces,"They are serving at the south entrance".

"You go on ahead. I have something to do."

In the next scene, I am lying in the supine position, cradling my racquet on my chest.  For some reason, I don't want the cat to see my precious racquet so I devise an evil plan.  Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the cat sneaking up on me.  I will pretend to be dead and when it is close by , I will let out a howl and scare that cat back to the basement where it belongs.

The cat is about to climb on my chest so I jump up howling like a lone wolf.

"Wake up.  Wake up." My wife is stroking my arm.  It seems my howling woke her up.

Ah, those PD, virtual reality dreams, make no sense, but they are interesting to the dreamer.  Not so much to the dreamer's spouse.

A third topic, the American election

I make no comment but you should be aware of a caution from the great American satirist, H.L. Mencken, "On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron"

57,430 page views and climbing

Statistics for the past 7 days

Canada	77
United States	58
United Kingdom	22
France	11
Spain	5
Ukraine	5
China	2
Israel	2
United Arab Emirates	1
Australia	1

Tennyson & Dylan

Spoiler - the following has nothing to do with PD.  It is my rant on the Nobel Prize recipient.

So, Bob Dylan has won the Nobel prize for literature.  Really!!  I like Bob Dylan but he is no Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  Poets of Tennyson's stature win prizes, not a gravelly voiced folk rock singer.  Witness the genius of Alfred, Lord Tennyson in Locksley Hall, written before there were airplanes.  Read the excerpt below.  Can you see he accurately predicted the future...ie... air machines for commerce and later as airforces bringing nuclear war (ghastly dew) until the war was over and a sort of League of Nations established to ensure peace?

Now that is Nobel material!  The man predicted the future in poetic form.  Show me a Dylan poem that comes close to this.  

If they had to pick a popular gravelly voiced troubadour, Leonard Cohen would be my pick.

From Locksley Hall For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;	120
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew
From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue;
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,	125
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro’ the thunder-storm;
Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.	130

Some confusion with Confucius, Nabokov and just for your erudition, a touch of Plato

Confucius, the great Chinese philosopher, wrote that "words are the voice of the heart".  In my world these days, words might not be the voice of the heart. I doubt that they are, but I am not sure I understand what Confucius meant.  He sounds uplifting.  Since I am not in the same realm as Confucius, I am unable to comprehend his philosophy but I have to say that at this time, my words are not the voice of the heart but rather my words are the voice of the reptilian part of my brain .  To be precise, my words are  the voice of the primal instinct of survival, the voice of trepidation.

All is not well in my household.  I have PD and my wife is suffering the effects of chemotherapy.  Life can be a bitch sometimes but we avoid speaking of the future and we count ourselves lucky for our past and present lives.  We seem to be handling our situations with grace and optimism.  With this in mind, I learned to speak again because I might have something to say as life improves.

My voice is coming back. My voice therapist has helped me to understand the decibel level I need to use to be heard. I try to maintain that level and only slip into my soft voice a few times each day. So now, I can be heard but unfortunately, at the moment, I have nothing to say. I can't talk about PD or cancer so all that is left is gossip about football and hockey. Only the jocks want to hear my thoughts on those topics.

 Ignore all the philosophy stuff because, believe it or not, this entry is about speech and parkinson's.  It is about how to find your lost voice only to have nothing to say,

 We suffer from two problems:

          1) quiet, soft voice.  Nobody can hear what we have to say.

          2) We have problems with word finding.

I have solved the first.  If you are a person with parkinson's and have something to say, I highly recommend LSVT Loud.  Check it out on Youtube. If you take it seriously, it will work and you won't be hearing "Whatzatt. Whadyasay?". Try it; you will like it.

 I have yet to solve the second.

                         I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, 
                         and I speak like a child. (Vladimir Nabokov)

I fear I am not a genius; I don't write like a distinguished author, but I do speak like a child.  Word finding haunts my speech but not my writing.  What to do?  What to do?  Well, I will find simpler substitute words and take the chance I will sound like a child.   At least my babble will be heard.

The other solution to problem #2 is to remain silent..."Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something." (Plato)

Speaking of low talkers, I am watching Kiefer Sutherland's new series, Designated Survivor. It is a good show, but I have to keep turning the sound up. Why does that man whisper most of his lines? He did it in 24 too. Darned annoying.

Speak up Kiefer, I need to follow the plot and I can't do that if I can't hear you.  A little LSVT training might be warranted.

I have no more to say on this topic.  I have run out of words.

May the road rise to meet you and the wind be always at your back.

I have always been fascinated by hurricanes. I see them as a mad, out of control, army of tornados and high winds. You remember the Tasmanian devil of cartoon fame? Gnashing and growling ...just running amok. That's the hurricane, a biblical tempest of chaos, intent on adding to the catalog of human woes. Danger incarnate.

I was 10 when Hurricane Hazel went through Nova Scotia, uprooting large trees, knocking out power, etc. Not a pleasant experience and that was just the tail end of a monster hurricane

Then there was Hurricane Andrew and in Florida City, you can see trees, stripped of all of their bark. Such was the fury of Andrew. Now there appears to be a ferocious one heading for Florida. I wish my Florida friends all the best and advise them to get out of its way. It's going to be a BIG one.

Frankly, I would prefer a 1966 type blizzard. At least you are safe in your house. A big Hurricane can tear your house down around you.

March 4, 1966, a little spring snowfall

Parkinson's is much the same as a hurricane (here the blogger strains for a metaphor), inner turmoil, outward chaotic shaking, designer attacks just to foil attempts to contain it......OK, OK. No metaphor here, just a confession. I really wanted to write about hurricanes, not PD.

To my friends in Florida, stay safe.

But hey, the blogger turns on CNN and is delighted to hear nothing about Donald Trump. This hurricane will keep them occupied for a few days!!

Footnote - did you know that, Florida, on average, has more tornados than any other state except Texas and Oklahoma (I read that somewhere. They must count the ones inside the hurricanes)

Reasonableness! Who needs it.

George B. Shaw made the observation that a reasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. The unreasonable man tries to adapt himself to the world' therefor, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

What's that got to do with the price of tea in China?

Just this....can't you see the analogy? PD is the world. Maybe "adapt" is not the right word but don't a bunch of us just let the disease take charge? Wrong strategy. Probably correct if you view PD as the disease that will eventually take away all your control over your ability of movement. I just don't think that way.

I know, I know, I know. At this time, that is precisely what our futures hold; but I prefer to adapt myself to the disease. Try it. Take your meds. Eat beneficial foods. Try to avoid stress (or perhaps more to the point, avoid "distress"), forget about natural remedies (I've tried them. They don't work (see footnote 1)) and exercise, exercise, exercise! Anything to slow down our dark passenger until a brilliant scientist geek solves our problem. Have our futures been predetermined? Nonsense. Use all your weapons. Your future depends on your "unreasonableness".

Let your motto be....... "Parkinson's is just a word, not a sentence." (2)

Footnotes

1. . Mucuna puriens, is a natural herb that does produce L-dopa, but the meds are better, much better!
2. Not an original. Somebody said it before me but in reference to "Cancer". I just borrowed it.

I tend to do that.