Man is, by nature, a social animal. – Aristotle

It is amazing how a time machine can devour the past.

Of course, I am talking metaphorically.

The lesson for today is twofold:

1. what is a metaphorical time machine? and
2. What's that got to do with PD?

A time machine exists only in the mind of H.G. Wells. Such a device is not real...or....maybe one is, speaking metaphorically. You don't need all the fancy contraptions envisaged by Wells; all you need is patience; eventually, you, or someone you know will organize a "reunion". Go to it. You will meet older versions of older friends but you will be transported back to your youth and the ages will slip away. Behold! The creation of a time machine.

My time machine occurred this past weekend. I set my ETA for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Friday was a meet and greet and I met and greeted people I had not seen for decades. Saturday was a huge success. For the most part, my parkinson's took a nap, allowing me access to normality. Well, sort of. My speech was too soft and I stumbled over words, but my old friends, now in their metaphorical teens, were willing to endure my "vocal patois". Unfortunately. Sunday was a bust. My PD exhaustion won out and I slept like a baby. However, I now had proof that metaphorical time machines really can exist.

But, what do time machines have to do with PD?

All those lousy symptoms we suffer can have an isolating effect on our lives. After all, who wants to be seen in public with one or both hands shaking uncontrollably, feet dragging noticeably, back bent crookedly and voice disappearing quietly. It's embarrassing, isn't it? Thus we prefer to stay in our homes, keeping contact with the outside to a minimum. Well, check this out:

• Your symptoms are not that noticeable.
• people who socialize enjoy better physical health
• Socializing strengthens the immune system
• Your mood will improve and finally,
• Your brain will benefit. People who get out of the house and lead active social lives are less prone to dementia

Get off the couch and find or build your own time machine disguised as a reunion(s). Try it. You won't regret it.

"Interacting with other people is crucial to our well-being. Social involvement helps shape our own identity, bolsters perception of our self-worth, and enables our simultaneous involvement as an individual and as part of a collective.

.... In quantifying predictors of quality of life in patients with Parkinson disease (PD), investigators found social isolation was second only to physical mobility as a factor in predicting poorer quality of life outcomes".

UCSF Parkinson's Center. 29/9/2015

One step back; two forward, but no giant leaps - I am waiting

The rich and famous get PD too.

Neil Diamond, M.J. Fox, Janet Reno, Charles Schulz, Robin Williams, Hitler and now Alan Alda. All of them have or had Parkinson's. You can find more of their financial ilk online. PD doesn't discriminate and in spite of their millions, we all, rich and poor, have the same chance of being cured.

On bad days, I am certain that a cure is beyond researchers' abilities but, they keep making discoveries, taking baby steps in the right direction. Eventually, they will announce a cure.

But, for me, well, I may as well try to catch the wind. I will have a fistful of nothing before we are successful in ridding ourselves of our verdammt parasite. I am just too old and it takes a couple of days before eternity to get a drug to market. You younger PWP will see success at some time in the future.

PD is the fingerprint of a malevolent universe. No two fingerprints are identical and no two PWP sufferers have identical sets of symptoms. So what? Who cares? So the rich & famous also suffer from PD, that in itself offers me no consolation. I neither envy them nor am I glad to see them join the tribe. No schadenfreude in this body. Nope, in here you will just find me with loathsome PD and I am growing tired of his presence. The fact is, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, "Fish and visitors stink in 3 days".

Today, meine freunde, today, I write about Freundschaft and its effect on PWP. Everybody needs a friend whom they can rely on. I am not talking about the run-of-the-mill friendship. I am talking about friends you see 1 or 2 times in decades, but when you come together, the years melt away. You hug them, shake hands and can relive the past with ease. They recognize your limitations and help you out, and for that help we PWP are grateful, even for the small things. Even little things are welcomed such as going out of one's way to get you a glass of wine to holding a chair so you can sit comfortably. We need your help occasionally and my friends, I have had the experience. Thank you.

I wish I did not have PD. I wish I was normal again; although normal is somewhat overrated. At our age/condition, there are no normals. Just ask any person over 70 and especially one with parkinson's. .....to be continued anon.

Isn't it rich; isn't it queer?

I am an "army brat" and proud of it.

A "Shilobrat" to be specific. A shilobrat is any person who has lived in CFB Shilo at any time since the base's creation in the 1940's.

My father was a soldier and, like all Canadian soldiers, he would be "posted" frequently, and as he went, so went his family. We were nomads. When asked, "What is your hometown?" I always answer "Shilo" although I only lived there for about 6 years in total. Yes, in three separate postings to Shilo, 4 years was the longest we ever stayed put. All army brats suffered the same disruptions in their lives. Each spring, summer or fall, there would be another moving van on the street, taking away another family.

Sad, don't you think?

Nah, it wasn't so bad. Afterall, you got to see interesting places in Canada, the USA, the UK and other exotic destinations. In our family, travel and crumbling keeps and radiant palaces brought excitement to my parents; for me, not so much.

For example, did you know that the field, famously known as Runnymede, where the Magna Carta was signed is/was just that .... a field. The site of an important step in the development of democracy is (or was in my day) just an ordinary field. After you have seen one field,.... you have seen them all! I had learned of Runnymede in school, but being there was, well, kind of boring.

Let me give you another example; I lived close to Stonehenge, where I and my friends would travel by bike when there was nothing else to do. To us it was just a pile of rocks forming an unusual pattern that added to the ambiances of our imaginations, nothing more.

Yes, when the mystery of famous places becomes commonplace, you are glad you have friends that make life interesting and can lift you out of the doldrums. That is what is special about being an army brat; not the shrines, castles, bomb shelters (it was 10 years after the war), and other places of historical significance. What was special was the friendship of other brats who spent their teens in Shilo and, upon graduating from grade 12, became scattered around the nation. I would not see 99% of them for many years. Then some genius invented the internet.

Our home in the ethernet started with one person, but the group of brats grew quickly. The result was Shilobrats.com and our inner teenagers returned with a gusto.

Next week, we have planned a reunion of Shilobrats from across Canada. They come to Winnipeg, to relive the past, from Grand Manan Island in eastern Canada to Vancouver Island in the west, each a distance of 1400 miles by air, to reunite in the center of Canada. The brats live in every province in the country. Some, like me, have PD or other life-altering conditions. Talk about support groups! I feel confident that if I ever had the need for support, I have a score of brats to whom I can turn during times of hardship.

Our friendships are the result of having had a soldier for a father. All that moving, changing schools, making new friends, etc, was my life for 18 years and I would not change a moment. This reunion will ignite forgotten times, bringing them back to life by "remember when...." conversations. Once more we will all be 16, full of health and innocence and for me, for once in the past 8 years, Parkinson's will take a back seat, if only for a few hours. I am looking forward to that time machine. It will probably be the last time I see most of them, but that's life.

Now if only I can keep standing (balance is a little off these days) and people are able to hear my disappearing voice, it should be quite a party!

"Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection." Schopenhauer

Andanotheronebitesthedust

Since my last entry shed no light on the placement of the advancement of my condition on whatever scale, and given that I seem to be at sea whenever I walk, I have had to admit to myself that PD is winning and will probably defeat me in the not so distant future.

BANG!

Well that negative thought just got blown out of the brain and was replaced with veiled positive carnage.

Actually, I reacted to the lack of clarity of the stage of PD in which I find myself by getting out the bike and going for a short jaunt, falling only once at a stop sign. I will try again this weekend. I further added to my inventory of weaponry by dusting off my nordic poles and walking about 2 miles. You should try it. the benefits are quickly realized. Check it out.

A few of the benefits of nordic pole walking

• uses 90% of the body's muscles
• burns up to 47% more calories than regular walking
• increases aerobic effect by up to 25% compared to regular walking

These are just 3 of the many benefits of nordic walking. Google "nordic pole walking". Try it. You will like it.

And it might banish those negative thoughts we all experience.

Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you will start having positive results (Willie Nelson)

Feelin' Groovy

I knew it! I knew it all along! Parkinson's is too complex to be pigeonholed into one of the 5 stages of the Hoehn and Yahr staging chart. I didn't fit into any stage completely. I thought my PD was relatively benign but Hoehn and Yahr had me believing I was deep into stage 3. I am not.

The Davis Phinney Foundation divides the progress of PD into 3 stages:

EARLY STAGE

• One side of the body affected (so far that is me but occasionally I feel it might be making forays into my left side.
• decreased stride or dragging the feet (no dragging but decreased stride for me)
• decreased arm swing (nope)
• scuffling of toes (yup)
• change in leg co-ordination when running or cycling (yup - no longer do those)
• sense of muscle fatigue (not sure. I feel fine right now)
• difficulty completing repetitive movements (not that I have noticed)
• trouble with hand coordination (nope)
• reduced range of motion in shoulders, shoulder pain (got both in spades)
• mask-like face (don't think so)
• decreased or small handwriting (Oh boy! have I ever!)

MID STAGE

• symptoms on both sides (not yet)
• Soft speech (Oh, Oh)
• mild swallowing problems (sometimes)
• flex or bent posture (have to admit, that's me)
• motor fluctuations and dyskinesia (nope)

LATE STAGE

• balance problems (sometimes)
• increased shuffle, freezing of gait & festination (all three but that was 4 years ago - never again after that)
• significant speech and swallowing problems (speech yes, swallowing no)
• drooling (no)
• rigidity in the neck (yup)

Well that clears things up! I am either in the first, second or third stage, (or all three)

Right now, I feel great.

A little introspection

I wrote the first four stanzas of this poem when I caught a glimpse of depression.  That was near the beginning of June.  I suffered bad news and to boot, my rotator cuff was damaged.  I decided, after missing 2 weeks of boxing, that I should go despite my injury.  The people at boxing are either victims of PD or volunteers.  The victims have accepted their fate but are uniformly optimistic.  To say they are uplifting is an understatement.  I come away from a class feeling good.  The class is my sanctuary.  After today's class, I wrote the last verse which I think gives hope for a future.  While admitting the inevitable outcome, I still have a vision of a cure.  I have to be ready.

If you have been following this blog, you will know I believe the brakes will be put on PD and the fitter the victim, the more that victim is likely to benefit .  Just- exercise - exercise - exercise.

Changes

sit over here
come as close as you dare
we'll wallow in our painful review
we'll catalog our woes
into "isn't's" and "no's"
And qualify life's many  changes

 You read the review
Got a question or two
Don't ask if you can't stand mirages
they settle like leaves
on the green grass of truth
that comes with the death of those changes

But in moments of madness
alone in the night
you dream of an answer or two
then they fade with the dawn
and you know without doubt
You've got to create your own changes

Sadly forlorn
you accept there's no cure
and your god is just feckless and late
no time to repent
you need more than that
So you stand on a headstone and wait
   
you are waiting there still
but the night's drawing near
and you doubt that prayer is the answer
no cure and so what
hold on to the fact
 only you can engineer changes

Oh, the drama of it all!

These days I know I really do have PD and it is having its way with me. I guess I am mid stage 3. I have encountered or am encountering the following:

1. Stiffness. I walk my granddaughter to school every day but today I only made it halfway. My legs were so stiff (how stiff were they?) They were so stiff I was walking like an aging Frankenstein. And, of course, there was pain that revealed itself whenever I reached down for her little hand.
2. Loss of Stability. The last couple of weeks, I would have fallen several times were it not for the presence of a wall or tree to stumble against and keep me upright.

Now I wear the cloak of uncertainty. If I stand up, will I trip the light fandango or, will I fall without any foreplay? I just don't know. I only know that the persistence of PD in its rush to claim control, is getting me down.....just a little bit mind you. I intend to keep on fighting. Defeat is not an option.
I can see your eyes well up with pity. "Poor fool," you mutter. It is pre-ordained that PD will win the war. Why fight it. Just quit and admit defeat."
Sorry, no can do. My plan is to flood its path with mud with the viscosity of molasses. I know I can't win, but I can still slow it down After all, the sun will come up tomorrow.