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Sunday 27 October 2013

All generalizations are false, including this one. (Mark Twain)

I hate exercise; although, I had been a runner for about 30 years until PD forced me to the ground in a rather violent manner. It's OK. It gave me a reason to stop running. Exercise! Every step is a misery, every lift a conundrum and don't get me started on my god-forsaken stationary bike. But, all the research I have read says exercise can slow down the progression of PD and that will be a fact, probably until the next "big" discovery comes along. It might claim that PWP should not exercise, but should take warm baths or whatnot.

However, being the lemming that I am, I am sticking with the exercise protocol currently in vogue. I have been asked what my particular exercise regime is. It is not arduous, just mind numbing. I mean how many times can one person listen to Afghanada on the ipod?! This is my new sequence. Sunday around 5AM, walk 3 miles, stopping only to get a newspaper and a coke at the local 7/11. Monday, ride the stationary bike for 30 minutes, try to keep my heart rate in the 95-115 range; when finished, I walk to the 7/11 (about 1/2 of a mile in total) to get a paper and a coke, Wednesday lift dumbbells for a half an hour in various positions and do the 7/11 routine, Thursday no exercise. Begin a new cycle on Friday, only in reverse. I also do about 20 minutes of stretching before the torture. The result? Well, I am fairly certain exercise works but strangely I put on a pound or three and I get tired, exhausted actually, and have to take a nap in the afternoon.

As the man said, I need 8 hours of sleep a day................. and another 8 at night.

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Tuesday 22 October 2013

Stress: Can be a Noun or Verb (tansitive or intransitive). But, who cares?

Stress Takes Its Toll in Parkinson's Disease

"It is believed that stress management and other stress relieving activities can improve the condition and reduce the symptoms of Parkinson's disease sufferers. Along with proper medication, good sleep patterns and regular exercise, stress management can be an effective strategy in managing the disease and reducing the rate of progression of the disease.....Reducing stress is the key to keep Parkinson's disease symptoms to a minimum....(See: 2007 Stress Management Review)

If stress can speed up the onset of PD, then a lack of stress should slow down the loss of dopamine producing neurons. So PWP should avoid stress - noun, verb, whatever. See if you recognize your stress as a noun or a verb in the following examples. If you do, kick that part of speech" to the curb". Slow down. Relax. Just let the moment pass.

  • Example: Stress as a noun, Funerals can cause stress.
  • Example: Stress as a transitive verb, He stessed the fact that he was emotional at funerals.
  • Example: Stress as an intransitive verb, Don't stress about the funeral

Funerals! What's all this talk about funerals and stress? Well, sit back and relax and I will tell you my story

My mother died a few weeks back. She welcomed death and knowing that, the family decided to hold a celebration of a life long lived and so they arrived from east and western Canada. We were a crowd of 21 people and much to my brother's disgust the funeral director gathered the family in a separate room to await the family entry into the chapel, the "perp walk" as my brother called it with a nervous laugh. It was then I noticed a slight tremor in my right hand. The service began, the slight tremor began to increase. When two of my children and their cousin began to read the eulogy I had written, emotion came into play and my pointing finger started to bounce. When the readers reached the final paragraph, two of them began weeping while the third tried to hold it together in order to finish. It was a valiant effort, but he did choke up and weeping and sniffling was rampant. As for me, the tears came and the right handed tremor began a jitterbug that lasted trough the reception, through the wake and all the next day. It settled into a mid-sized tremor on the following day and today, it has slowed to a slight wiggle.

Do you think it was stress that caused that unregulated right hand to appear? Of course it was; I lost a few hundred more neurons than usual in those four days. Maybe many more. In fact, I think that if each neuron lost was equal to a calorie, I would have turned into a hunk a hunk of burning love. A shaky hunk, but a hunk nevertheless.

Excuse me while I look for a mirror

Saturday 12 October 2013

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded....

There are 1.265 million people in my province and apparently only 6,000 of us suffer from PD. If you just take these two populations, it means I had about a 1/2 of 1% chance of being a PwP, as did each of my fellow PDers.

I bring this up because yesterday, I went to a lecture on income tax. There were approximately 100 participants, but still several empty seats. I sat at the back, as is my wont, so I could escape if the lecture got boring, which was highly probable - I mean it was on income tax. There was an empty seat beside me and a large man sat down and introduced himself just as the lecture started. Now, I was heavily medicated so I bore no signs of my dark passenger (I am a fan of Dexter). After awhile, I noticed his right hand doing the PD polka as it rested on his knee. Couldn't be, I said to myself. He must be hearing interior music and he is just keeping time. But, the hand and one finger did not stop moving except when he folded his arms, took a drink, or tried to make notes. The movement was especially noticeable when the hand was resting on his knee. He had it! A parky brother! The first I had met in real life!

What are the odds? There must have been 30 open chairs to sit in but he chose the one beside me. Two lawyers, with you-know-what, seated together at a dreaded lecture on income tax. I ask you again; what are the odds!? I used to know how to calculate them but that little gem of knowledge has faded with time. I do however, know those are long odds.

I intended to ask him if he was a fellow traveler, but I had to leave as my parking meter was getting to the point where a tow away was distinctly possible. The next time I see him, I will(or he will) welcome him (me) into the fraternity, Phi Beta Shakeah, the brotherhood of PwP, who figure God's dice must be loaded. Someone in the game is cheating.

Of course God and the high rolling angels can always counter with Un coup de des jamais n'abolira le hasard""


A throw of the dice will never abolish chance.

Friday 11 October 2013

A lack of habit and routine can be costly. - an essay on the hippy hippy shake.

Jim Morrison once said that drugs are a bet with the mind. I am pretty sure he meant that in a negative way. In my case, and probably for the whole tribe of PWP, it can be said that a lack of drugs is a bet with the mind.

I am not good with remembering to take my drugs (mirapex and amantadine). Unfortunately, I am a touch obsessive and when I start to work, all of my energy and common sense is focused on the product of my work. Medication? What me worry? (remember Mad magazine) I will take them soon. But "soon" apparently has a different meaning in my world because I put off taking the meds until I forget about them completely. Yesterday, I went about 12 hours without taking one dose and the result was I got that Parkie feeling - tired, light headed, slow, difficulty with balance and a pronounced shaking tremor. The voices of the people talking to me were hollow sounding and my responses were slow and full of stammers. I had difficulty manuevering around the grandchildren and their toys. I was a sober drunk.

Today, I am fully medicated and the shakes have retreated. My brain is functioning again. Jim Morrison's statement can now be viewed as being positive, the drugs have won the bet, much to the relief of my body. I am not completely normal as I am going now to have a nap (a "lie down" as Basil Fawlty used to say). I just can't shake the exhaustion that can only be understood by PWP.

One of the "yogiisms" of that famous Yankee catcher, Yogi Berra, that I whole-heartedly agree with is, "I usually take a 2 hour nap between one and four".

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Tuesday 8 October 2013

The Wrath of the Grape

It is very cold here in the winter. We have to escape the deep freeze. We choose to not get warm using the method of Sam Mcgee, so instead, we head to South Miami Beach for 3 weeks each year. We have to go when it is President's Day, for the sales - particularly at Macey's. My wife is very fond of Macey's on President's Day! We also try to hit an event. We used to go on tours, but over the past 12 years we have done most, if not all, of the interesting ones. Two years ago, we went the Wine and Food Festival, but at $150 a pop, it was a flop. We vowed never to go again. Last year we had tickets to the Comedy Festival, but I felt too parky so we passed it by. Mostly we just enjoy summer in February and March, but this year we got intrigued once again by the Wine and Food Festival, particularly a seminar about "Ice Cream and Champagne Sharing". Now I am an aficionado of both ice cream and the bubbly. We purchased 2 tickets. I will let you know the outcome later, if I survive.

But this is not about my love of good champagne, it is about fear. If you have been a reader from the start, you might recall I have had a couple of falls caused by PD. I also had an odd PD gait one early morning. I didn't fall, I just couldn't control my feet and I felt that if I stopped, I wouldn't get going again. I ended up ankle deep in a puddle, with 3 people looking at me with just a hint of disgust - a drunk, so early in the morning! My fear is that I will have a few glasses of wine, encounter fenistation and weave my way toward home ending up flat on my face with an audience. My ordinary PD stride lacks control at the best of times, but with added champagne encouragement, I am afraid I might make a spectacle of myself.

Too bad, I am going to enjoy the seminar to the maximum.

I just thought of the opening lines of that Scottish poem The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens

The king sits in Dumfermline town.
Drinking the blude-red wine

That will be me, king for a day, with my trusty wife to hold me up.

I would like to thank everyone who has contacted me, by email, with their comments and also thank you for your condolences on the passing of my mother.

“I feel a very unusual sensation – if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude.”
Benjamin Disraeli

Thursday 3 October 2013

I think I am aging in dog years.

I forgot my evening dose of medicine Monday night and was wakened at about 4AM by a wrenching cramp in my leg. That was a wake up call to remind me not to forget. The problem is, as I grow older, I grow stupider by the day and I have over developed the art of forgetting. I would program reminders into my phone but I, much to my disgust, have become technology-challenged when it comes to smart phones. I am on the road to becoming a luddite.

My right hand is shaking more persistently these days and, at times, I feel like I am walking on a waterbed. I think it is stress. My mother died this past weekend. She was 95 and enthusiastically welcomed the grim reaper. It is a time of celebration for a life well lived, no heavy grief, but plenty of stress. They say that in life we search for utopia and in death we find it. Good for you mom.

By the way, I never did tell my mother about my condition. She had enough problems without worrying about me. Fortunately, she died before the symptoms of PD surfaced. Thank goodness for small victories.

I think I will double my dose of mirapex to see if I can stop this bothersome hand jive. I am not fond of regular dancing (much to my wife's disappointment) so you can imagine my feelings about the rhythm of the PD dance. I'd rather trim my nose hairs with a weed whacker than occupy the dance floor.

But I digress. Back to PD. Sometimes I fear what lies ahead. Not often; just sometimes. Then I give my head a shake. Nobody can predict with any accuracy how fast PD will take over, so when that fear creeps in, I just think about Star Wars - as Yoda said, "Always in motion is the future."

May the force be with you.