BANG, BANG, MAXWELL'S SILVER HAMMER

Am I doomed? Will I become dependent on family members or worse, institutionalized? Will I be confined to a wheelchair and like Ali, barely able to throw out the first ball? Hell no! The night is so bright, I have to wear shades; well except for the "growing old" thing. My future includes an intimate rendezvous with death but until then, I will thrive...... relatively speaking.

My life has been good since being diagnosed. It was perfect prior to DX; but in the darkness of the gym, in the final few minutes of my basketball game, the ref called out "Strike 3!". My right hand began to tremble and my hands grew weak. I had been hit with PD and I had a need to hit back.

"That's too bad," someone said without a hint of compassion. I thought I would get more sympathy; after all, I was about to declare war on my brain and I was gathering my army of sympathizers. Outside of my family, there were only a few really genuine soldiers. Good friends but, what could they do? Drugs kept the enemy quiet, but my brain was, and is, winning the war.

That realization became my "aha!" moment. I was in this battle alone. When I took my first foray, I did so with Invictus carved into my brain:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

My weapon of choice was exercise and I began a flurry of sweat and strain using weights, isometric training for PWP, stationary bike and treadmill. I do something daily and I believe it has slowed the advance of the enemy. Remember, Ali had lived with PD for about 30 years. With time and the advancement of PD research, we should all get more time than he did to enjoy life.

("Invictus" - Willam Ernest Henley)

P.S. This entry was serious, but I also find humor in our situation, so keep a lookout, I might try to sneak some in. Please laugh.

Also, I really appreciate your comments. Keep them coming.

Time, time, time....See What's become of me

To PWP. As the title suggests, lately I have been thinking about time. What is time? Is it merely a human construct to keep track of the of events in our lives. My thoughts are kept amused by the philosophy of time - For example, the world has standardized a method of measuring the changing of events through an ingenious process involving the sun and moon and other celestial events; but, it is likely that everybody's daily events are different; ergo, when those events belong to an individual, that individual owns all of his time.

The medical profession likes order and with order comes time, but time is not an ordered system and logically time and the two cannot be connected. Time is chaotic. Nevertheless, physicians and medical researchers continue to use some version of an ordered sequence to describe the effect time has on the progression of PD. The most common sequence is a chart describing the 5 stages of Parkinson's. What rubbish! Both time and PD are wrapped in chaos and each PWP owns his or her own time.

We all know we will deteriorate but we also know PD is a designer condition in which advancement of the "disease" cannot be predicted in an accurate manner. It is different for each person. I am in the 8th year of my journey and I know I am not what I used to be, but I refuse to put myself into one of the five stages. I am where I am. I have survived in the past so that part is no longer of any use as a predictor, and I refuse to try and predict my problems into the future. That's not quite true, I predict only positive happenings. In the meantime, all I know with any certainty is that the here and why is now.

PWP will know whereof I speak. We each carry a unique version of the disease; consequently, the medical world which tries to predict the future using standard measures of disability is misguided. They do their best but they have no cure and no proven method of slowing the progression of PD. We PWP are all different, so don't try to pigeon-hole us into 5 stages in an attempt to create certainty out of an entirely chaotic system. We own our own version of the future. It is ours to predict. Make your prediction positive and trust that with time, these professionals will work with chaos and give us a cure. They will help us along our journey as best they can but in the meantime, repeat after me, "My future is mine. I know that PD will continue to run its destruction, but I will not let it beat me."

I intend to die with dignity!

That is today's rant.

Do all those folks have PD. I hope not

How many pageviews have I had.....92,105 

On average how many of those pageviews are from real people?  I don't know but lately, I am averaging 2 - 8 first time visitors every day.

Where do they come from you ask?  From all over the world.  Here are the stats from last week.  The numbers are pagviews.

Russia  251

Canada  59

United States  27

United Kingdom  25

Australia  9

France  5

Ireland  5

South Korea  4

Peru  2

Poland  2

Thanks for reading. 
 I hope I have

been of some interest 
and or help.

Spiritual Fodder or how the good luck (nearly) tanked

Some time ago I described my brother as "bombastic". I was surprised to learn that the true meaning of the word. What I meant to say was he can be eloquent and is certainly self-assured and totally unpretentious. I don't know how I got confused. I blame it on PD as I am wont to do with every mistake I make and every ache I take. I am always lucky with aches and pains and verbal issues. Like my siblings and children, I enjoy what has been called "the Jord*****Luck". As one of my brother's posse said, "You Jord***** could fall into a bucket of shit and come out smelling like roses." He could be right but that good old luck was strained two weeks ago.

I was in a boxing ring with the Canadian heavyweight champ when he hit me with a jackhammer blow to my chest. I sat up in bed, wide awake and alert and I cried out, "What the hell was that?" Had the blow been real or had it been my imagination, brought on by one of those parkie dreams?" Only a dream, I decided, only a dream." Heart problems are not part of the Jord***** culture. But, I knew the thump in my chest had been real. I tried to go back to sleep and, just in case, I offered up a prayer to a deity that is not part of my consciousness. You know the type of prayer....please lord, get me through the night and I will....Yadda,yadda, yadda.

I awoke early in the morning with terrible pain in my left shoulder, excruciatingly so in my left bicep. Oh Oh. Was this just parkie pain or was I having a heart attack? After all, we PWP can't blame everything on Parkinson's. We do; but we shouldn't.

I ruled out a heart attack. That would be bad luck, totally contrary to Jord*****luck. I decided to ignore it, but I dwelled upon some advice offered by my brother a few decades back, that had involved an irregular heartbeat. That advice was, "You would be stupid not to get that looked at!" Advice that was subsequently echoed by a friend on a separate heart incident 20 years later. I pondered their advice but each time I had gone to a doctor and each time I had been deemed healthy. No heart problems. Therefore, this time I decided to ignore my symptoms, even though this time it looked like the real thing.

My mind was changed by my wife, and I reluctantly went to the clinic.

To shorten this cathartic moment, my doctor proclaimed me to be healthy but just in case, he ordered an EKG, chest x-ray and stress test and a visit to the cardiologist.

A "cardiologist!" That can't be good.

The initial test results were fine, except the stress test showed a possible blockage.

A "blockage"! I didn't like the sound of that.

The cardio doc called me in. I was nervous. Would I be able to box again? Would my daily workout be ruled dead?(On the plus side, would I get a free membership to the ReFit Centre?) Would I need an operation? Was I in the initial stages of my demise where the next attack would kill me?

In the 20 minutes it took to get to the cardio's office, I silently offered myriad prayers to my invisible friend in the sky (as Bill Maher would say). I sat across from the doctor who had entered the office with an odd smile on his face.

"How are you?" he asked.

"OK," I replied and thus began a 15 minute interview which ended when the verdict was rendered. I was pronounced healthy and able to participate in any sport. To be on the safe side he added, "Don't go over 100 beats per minute and take one 81mg pill per day". He also wrote a prescription for some pills to control cholesterol.

I had been to the dark side and called on God for help. I doubt that the prayers had any effect. But, you never know. We won't find out until we pass on down the road apiece.

As Woody Allen once remarked "To you I am an athiest; to God, I am his Loyal Opposition."

PAR RUM A PUM PUM, ME AND MY DRUM.

"P" is for positive

"I have been following your personal blog almost since you first started it. I love your sense of humor and unique take on Parkinson's. A lot of what you describe seems to parallel other chronic diseases that many of us have either had or witnessed in others. Your positive attitude is a great inspiration to all who read your articles"

An old friend sent me this email and it made my day. People think it takes years to grow a lasting friendship. That may be true for civilians but for us, we military brats, it takes a couple of summers to develop close ties such that a good friend can be found in every city in Canada. Without the internet; however, I would not have known where to find my good friends. Our fathers / mothers moved us all over the country, rarely stopping in one place for more than 3 years and we settled in every province. But thanks to technology, for us military brats, the internet has, seemingly by accident, turned the world into a sleepy armed forces base on the Canadian prairie. I will give that place a name, "CFB Shilo" where in 3 years, I made more friends than I made in the next 40 - 50 years. The author of the quote above is just one of many that occupy a special room in my heart.

We are lucky people.

It is at times like this, awash in the glow of such encouraging remarks from an old friend, that I can stand up and prepare for the next onslaught on my health. It is coming..... but I shall be prepared. Rest assured I will not be beaten in my war against my brain. Join me in our expectation of ultimate victory. It is important for all PWP or victims of any other chronic condition to remember to keep positive, keep exercising, keep fighting and just when you think you have exhausted all possibilities for winning the day, you haven't. Try one more time.

Heart of my heart

Most people would argue that the heart controls the brain, but they are the romantics, incurable at best. The fact is the brain is the capo de tutti capi most of the time but occasionally, it is just another Ozymandias, the king of kings.

Case in point:
Since last Thursday, I have had an upper-body injury (to quote NHL bosses). To be specific, I have a pain in my chest that radiates down my left arm. At first. thinking or perhaps at some level knowing, I might be having a heart attack, I machoed my way through the agony by ignoring it; that is, until the "Dream"

You all know, if you have been reading my blog, we parkie people can have virtual reality dreams. Dreams so vivid they become real, in an unreal manner. I was dreaming about boxing. I was in the ring with an actual pugilist when he suddenly clobbered me with a shot to the chest. It felt like a cannonball had just broken my heart. I awoke immediately, crying into the night, "What the hell was that?" Combined with the continual pain in my chest, I was sure it must have been a heart attack.

Here comes my Ozymandias moment when the brain surrenders its kingly powers.

I didn't want to go to emergency and apparently, nor did my brain; so for 3 more days we sat around arguing and claiming that heart problems couldn't possibly happen to me. Afterall, I was in better shape than most 50-year-olds! But the pain kept getting worse and the name "Jim Fixx" was lolling around and taking up residence in my thoughts.

I called my doctor!

He examined me thoroughly and I was put through an EKG, chest x-ray and stress test. Guess what? No, you are wrong. My heart & lungs & blood pressure are all normal. No heart attack and none imminent. Okay, so the brain won this expedition into the twilight zone. But I and it must smarten up to avoid the fate of Ozymandias.

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings
Look on my Works ye Mighty and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

BTW if anyone from Boxing reads this, will you tell our leaders that my absence is due to an upper-body injury and I am week to week as to my return. It still hurts 7 out of 10 and is getting worse.

I am off to put some snow in a plastic bag.