Something's happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear.

If I had to guess, I would estimate that fewer than one percent of you have it as cold as we do here. In fact, I think we live in the coldest major city in Canada. It is currently -24C or about -30C with the windchill (that's 11 below and 22 below for USA readers). But that didn't stop me from taking my morning constitutional.

It is COLD; surprisingly cold! Bare skin will freeze solid in 10 minutes. It is the kind of cold that cannot be described accurately. It is not possible for a person who is warm to understand how cold it is.

But, amazingly, I enjoy walking in cold weather. If you dress correctly, you can be warm on the coldest day. So today, I put on 2 pairs of long underwear, insulated wind pants, long sleeved t-shirt, sweat top, fleece vest, parka, half balacava for the nose, wool hat, and a neck warmer that I pulled over top of my hat to cover my nose, cheeks and neck. I looked like the Pillsbury Dough Boy with a problem. That problem was difficulty walking.

Here I finally get to the PD

I feel uncertain when I walk. It is as if my legs are weak and shaky. Again, I feel my center of gravity leaving my body to walk in front of me. I have to reel it back in by performing one of the tricks given to me by the wise ones on Parkinsons UK . I find that marching (hut 2,3,4, hut 2,3,4 etc) helps the most. It causes me to stand straight and concentrate on my footwork, which is hard to do with Jace Everett blasting "Bad Things" through my earbuds. Nevertheless it works, as do the other tricks suggested in an earlier post, although to a lesser degree.

My problem is, I don't know if I am imagining my center of gravity desert me or if my uneasy feeling is due to the uneven snow surface, the cold making me keep my head forward and down (to avoid freezing exposed skin on my face) or my bulky winter clothing. It almost seems too easy to prevent the uncontrolled falling forward that has happened to me twice in my PD career. Einstein once said, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.". That's me, I have enough knowledge about PD to be afraid of its symptoms, so even a clear, non-PD explanation of a PD-like symptom can set a suggestible person like me to thinking, and that's not a good thing.

So, I am suggestible, with a touch of OCD, and PD, all wrapped in an aging body. I am just trying to make sure the catalog of human woes is complete.

All in all, it was a pretty good walk.