The will is alive with the sound of building.

What is joy without sorrow? What is success without failure? What is a win without a loss? What is health without illness? You have to experience each if you are to appreciate the other. There is always going to be suffering. It’s how you look at your suffering, how you deal with it, that will define you. ¹

I don't know Mr. Twain. Sometimes I wander off the true and narrow path to enlightenment, but does one need to have both; to have one, you must have the other. Must life be balanced?

I remember a time when I suffered only joy, success, good health, and, if I do say for myself; I was a winner, But now..... now I know sorrow. I have not won anything for some time. I am out of balance. I am suffering the hanky without the panky; the holus without the bolus.

But this current setback is momentarily purely metaphysical. For some pessimists, the future of PWP is certain. We will end up requiring round-the-clock care, unable to be independent and perhaps with dementia.

How bleak is that!

I refuse to accept that fate. I am at war with PD. Unfortunately, at the moment, I seem to be failing. My defenses are breaking down. I am losing the battle for my sense of balance. Literally! There is some mysterious force trying to tip me over. Usually backwards.

I have had this shadow following me for nigh-on nine years and I refuse to let it upset me (get it?). With effort, I can forestall it until researchers find some way to stave it off completely . Trust me. The day will arrive when our weapons will be nuclear and the last battle will reveal us to be the winners with a legacy of joy, success and good health. These days of weary doubt and complications will just be fading memories.

Every PWP should decree their individual secular jihad; like Churchill:

We shall defend our health, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender ².

Life need not be zero-sum game in a perfect yin-yang ballet. With our will and our scientists, we shall fight on to the end. We will never surrender. The good can and will eventually outweigh the bad.

Zero-sum game, my ass!

Will somebody please hand me my cane?

(1)Mark Twain (2) Winston Churchill (with my apology)

Poetry's a notion

Some of you (well, maybe one or two) have asked me to write some of my poetry in my blog. The poems that have appeared earlier, while the words were original, the tempo and foundation were based on songs. When I re-read my own poetry, I think it is not very good but my son showed me one I had written decades ago. As I remember, it was based on a story I was reading about the sex trade in Denmark. I think this is not bad, Probably the only one worth posting. After this, I shall not inflict myself upon you further.

The Streets of Copenhagen

On the streets of Copenhagen,
Supine, and bathed in red,
I found a woman bleeding
From the thorns around her head

I stroked her hair, then gently
Placed two coins upon her eyes,
A genuflect to try to catch
The screams between her sighs.

If only this were real,
She whimpered in her sleep,
Perhaps we might have had a life
And lived beyond the street.

If only we were lovers
But I knew her soul was dead,
And I was growing kind of weary
Of the nails in our bed.

I stooped to say the right things,
But it came as no surprise,
She was just an empty savior
Full of saccharine and lies.

She wiped her eyes with steel wool.
Her arms stretched out to keep
The shadow that could never mend
The wounds upon our feet.

Lust became confusion,
And demanded to be free;
I told her I forgave her
And she did the same for me.

In the streets of Copenhagen
Where love is found for rent
It doesn't really matter
How your dignity is spent

Stairway to Heaven

Stairway: noun - first used 1767, defined as: one or more flights of stairs usually with landings to pass from one level to another. (Merriam - Webster).

Have you noticed we have an abundance of stairs?

Stairs, Stairs, everywhere there're stairs.
I try to avoid them but I'm gettin' nowhere
Let's replace all stairs
Short ones, long ones, fancy or plain,
If there ain't no elevator, then hear me complain.

Now I have no beef per se with stairs. It is just they scare the crap out of me. Give me an elevator or escalator over a stairway any day of the week. I avoid stairs completely unless they have a sturdy handrail, but then I use them rather reluctantly and only if there is no other option.

If faced with using a handrail-less staircase, I will stay grounded.

I have reached the PD stage where balance is a concern. So much so, that I was unable to ride a bike this past summer. I failed because I couldn't mount the bike. That was humiliating.

An incident today, humbled me even more.

I was out early, walking, using my nordic poles, when I espied a very tiny person, on a very tiny two-wheeled bike, racing down the sidewalk, with his dad in hot pursuit. I stopped and asked the panting father "How old is your little boy?"

He smiled and replied"Three"

"Good Lord!" I chuckled.

"I know!" he said proudly while chasing his kid down the block.

A three-year-old racer! He was three and rode easily. He steered left and right, checking his balance each time. He was having a grand old time. Just out with his dad and making him run. Now, I am 24 times his age and can no longer control my balance enough to even ride a bike!

Oh PD, you bastard! You get closer to victory every day! Why you do me this way!?

Have no fear PWP, the war ain't over yet.

STATS - A SLOW WEEK

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Oh that magic feeling

Saw Paul McCartney a couple of days ago. I had seen him once before - a very memorable concert, but this one, this one "blew my mind" as we used to say. It was, quite simply the best show I have ever seen (and yes, I have seen some good entertainment, eg, Black Sabbath, Led Zepplin, Iron Butterfly, Segovia, etc). At 76 years of age, Paul is still the greatest.

Only one problem. I was so "up" for the show, so into the music and the spectacle, that I subconsciously released the chains that were keeping my PD captive. My hand began to tremble, a long muscle (or nerve - I don't know anatomy) in my forearm began to tighten while my right leg went into spasm.

It was all very weird. It makes me think that my brain must work in concert with my drugs. Somehow the brain seems to assist the drugs in keeping me symptom-free. The music and the performance subdued that part of my brain that keeps tabs on PD and the symptoms escaped. Fortunately, the brain rearrested the escapees once I relaxed in bed at home and let my mind go blank.

Have you ever noticed that the highly intense PWP exhibit the most symptoms. Me neither, I have never noticed that in anybody I know; but, the existence of such people would fit perfectly into my theory that a part of the brain helps keep the symptoms at bay, so, they must be out there. Keep looking. A corollary would add that if you are highly symptomatic, you need to relax, permit the brain to shut down like they do in meditation.

When you meditate, you embrace your problems, your fears, your concerns, and even your anger. Let the body use its natural powers to heal itself (or so I have been told, I was never a fan of meditation, but I am going to start - tomorrow, Wednesday at the latest).

Where there are thoughts, it is distraction:
when there no thoughts, it is meditation*

Join me in my pursuit of nothingness.

*Ramana Maharishi

It seems so easy; so doggon easy

Everybody's talking about it.  "It" being the nervous system and in particular those neurons involved with the production of dopamine.  So let's start with a beginner's look at the neuron pictured here on the right.  A neuron sends and receives messages to/from the brain.

1.  light purple on the left of the cell represents dendrites which, through some kind of magic, pick up messages from other neurons.  The figure to the left shows neurons in action, the space between the neurons is called a synapse.  Chemicals called neurotransmitters allow the message to jump the synapse and pass it on to the next neuron.

2.  The long light blue fiber (you can barely see it in the diagram to the right) is called an axon and it carries the message away from the cell to the axon terminal (light purple the end of the axon) where the message passes through the synapse to the next neuron.  The dark blue bulges along the axon make up the myelin sheath, the purposes of which is to speed up the message along the axon.

3.  In our case, the neurotransmitter that allows the passage of the message through the synapse is dopamine.

4.  In our case, dopamine-producing cells begin to die off and less dopamine is produced and our movements are affected by this lack of dopamine.

So, that's the Cole's Notes version of the working of a neuron.  If I have made mistakes or left out some important point, forgive me.  "Damn it Jim, I am a blogger, not a neurosurgeon. "

Easy right?  Now you know what I know and it doesn't take a genius; although, as Einstein once said:

                  "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability 
                   to climb a tree, It will live its whole life believing 
                   that it is stupid.

Well, you ain't no fish and nobody's asking you to climb a tree.  The trouble is, the system is a lot more complicated than I have outlined, and I am half way up that damn tree.

Sometimes you can expect mediocrity

I am having writer's block. It is the result of having too much material and not enough energy. My thoughts are my grandson's toys littering the carpet of my metaphysical living room. Yes, such a structure really can exist, albeit in the mind of a guy corrupted by reality.

But let's move on. It is time to clean the clutter that is preventing meaningful discourse, so here are the cole's notes versions of events from the past 6 weeks.

• The reunion: I played a major role in the creation of a reunion of old friends from across Canada. We are old, you understand, in our 60's 70, and 80's; therefore, you can expect to see all types of conditions. I saw people who needed hip replacements through to victims of cancer, but no other PWP were present. I compared PD with the other conditions I saw. Our great disadvantage is our disease cannot be cured, it will continue to have its way with us. Their problems, for the most part, can be fixed, ours, not so much. Was I jealous? Of course I was, but here's the good news. I had forgotten to take my medicine that day and the shaking palsy should have made an appearance, but the excitement of seeing old friends appears to have caused the shaking and the stiffness to disappear for the evening. No meds, no symptoms! Maybe PD is all in our heads

  (Now cut that out. You know what I mean.)

• Boxing continues to overcome my bad days. The boxers and volunteers are very laid back, interesting, nice and normal. I really enjoy the structured workouts, and behold, my left arm is improving. Boxing is good for PWP. It improves my outlook every time. I go home on a natural high and sometimes will ponder the future and realize it is not, as Leonard Cohen said, "murder".
• Another activity for PWP is choir. Thirty or so of us trying to sing and, except for the ladies, failing miserably. But the point of the exercise is to project your voice (like LSVT Loud). There is no requirement for a bonny voice, which is a good thing because we sound like a flock of sick parrots. The noise is truly helpful, and it is also fun, and it doesn't hurt that the other singers seem very nice and down to earth. The instructor has an incredible voice and is full of enthusiasm. As for me, at the conclusion of the session, people could actually hear me when I spoke. I recommend it to any, and every PWP, especially if you are voice-impaired like me.