Ten for Tuesday - Things that Make Me Happy

I was recently asked how I can believe that the best days are to come, considering I have Parkinson's and so do many of the people I'm telling that to. I think that's a fair question.

This was my reply:

If I don't believe that, I think about aspiration pneumonia killing me, losing my cognitive function, my wife caring for me 24 7, family sadness, not driving, not working, and loss of hobbies. However, even if those things scare me, I do believe educating, advocating, inspiring, and empowering will change other people for the better . It's about me, but it's more about the next generation being curable.

I'm saddened by all who feel the pain of this, which you describe . Keep fighting and think of the new normal's victories now and to come as your motivation. You're a great person... positive energy and thoughts to you.

This is my feeling 2 days later:

Just like a week ago when I wrote this POST about simple and under-appreciated pleasures, I'm deciding to make my 10 things that make me happy a regular column every Tuesday. I encourage you to do the same.

I also encourage you to compile a list of things that you value. Here are 200 of mine from an OLDER POST.

Obviously, winning at the casino would be the bomb diggity (as the kids say), but I'm keeping it simpler.

1. Family Pride. Muffet McGraw won her 2nd NCAAW's basketball championship after buzzer beating UCONN and Mississippi State. By the way, she's not only Notre Dame's coach, but she's family (my mom's cousin). Mad love to the Notre Dame girls... more ACL injuries than losses on the season.

2. Otis Redding... that voice... whether on its own or mixed with Jay-Z and Kanye West. So much talent lost so young. "Lookin' like wealth... I'm about to call the paparazzi on myself."

3. Breathing help... whether it's supplemental inhalers (Ventolin or Breo), a cool-air humidifier, or a lung reverberator, it loosens up the allergy nastiness and helps me stay out of the hospital.

4. A freshly made bed to crawl into at night. I can't overstate the joy of this!

5. A brand new daypack with lots of room for water (the Camelbak HAWG), which is just waiting to be used when the rain breaks. All that water space (at least 2 100-ounce bags) helps defeat hyperhidrosis on those long, hot hikes.

6. When the kid who is the persona for your action / adventure hero (CJ, who is the model for Colin Jameson) holds the book he stars in for the first time. It's going to be a couple years before he can read something that thick, though. Nevertheless, more humble joy!

7. My Olympus Tough camera. We take digital pictures and delete what we don't like. We don't pay to develop pictures if they don't come out. Additionally, this one is waterproof, freeze proof, and crush proof... perfect for my 4-year old nephew Dylan to take pictures.

8. My Sony Walkman. Remember when we had to buy CDs, tapes, and albums, and then we had a hard time compiling favorite songs, storing them, or wondering what to do with all the cruddy songs we didn't like? I know the hipsters love vinyl. As for me, gimme digital music and the ability to carry over 3,000 songs in multiple playlists.

9. My wife's artwork. I'm a big celebrator of what others do. I live vicariously through it. Here are some recent examples...

10. A typed list I can use to keep myself in order... it's all good.

So what thinks you about your list? In the end, my items reflect any day I'm at 98.6°. Whether it's to see spring's flowers, go to Primanti Brothers, go hiking, meet with students to help them learn / do a disability interview, get artwork from my niece Amanda, or just celebrate all I can still do, it's all good. I hope you feel the same about wherever you are in life.

Bears, Critters, and Ticks...

A few years ago. I was walking through the woods in search of Priceless Point, and the guide I had wasn't helping me. This was because the new book I had was already aged, and the trail was no longer maintained because the pathway was relegated to private property.

At the time I had no idea of this, so I pushed up the former trail. Along the top of the ridge, I had to cross a downed tree, which was supported end to end on rocks. The tree was a little taller than my inseam, so I shimmied over it, and when I did, I heard this "belchy reverberation." When I did, I paused and looked, and figured, "OK" as I heard nothing.

A minute or so later, I heard another one. 

It wasn't a growl, but it sounded loud and close. I thought, "Hmmm... a loud sickly bird." I'm not sure if I heard one or 2 more of these sounds, but I looked up in front of me as I heard movement, and 2 bear cubs were coming down a tree like it was the Bat Pole! The first little guy was down in a woosh! The second one gave me a solid back view to which I froze in amazement and fear knowing that it was cool to see him go down in slow motion, but the "belchy reverberation" was actually mom calling for them. 

Immediately, I retreated back to behind the tree and got my bear mace out and held still waiting to see what would transpire. Nothing happened for a few minutes, so I started to move again and then I heard rustling in the leaves. 

Mom was still out there!

With this, I turned around, post haste! 

Looking back on it now, it was definitely an awesome moment, but it was definitely scary, too (even though black bears are supposed to be more afraid of us than we are of them)! Since that time, I've seen 2 bears in the woods (one while driving and another huge one I almost stepped on while hiking on the Appalachian Trail at Lehigh Gap)! Prior to that, I saw 2 others while driving. As a kid, I remember seeing some, too, but now, they're the elusive prize and my favorite animal.

I love those furry things. I also love seeing deer, turkey, foxes, and other furry critters in the woods. My non-bear biggest prize was seeing a coyote walk across my path with a bird in his mouth heading up to the top of Flat Rock at Colonel Denning State Park. Now that was cool.

I can't seem to buy a snake sighting, let alone a rattler. I guess that's OK for my wife, but I want to accumulate some cool photos of 'em!

This is the only one I've ever seen, which was at the Pinnacle on the AT.

In the woods, we're more likely to come across another set of friends, and all things considered, they're more dangerous than some other critters.

These bastids are ticks, and they carry Lyme disease, which is the Great Imitator.

At the same time I was diagnosed with Parkinson's, I also found out I had Lyme. Let me tell you; you don't need to see a bullseye for these insects to have gotten you.

I'm living proof.

If you're unsure of the symptoms or what the Great Imitator means, check HERE.

If you would like to read my detailed article on LYME, click HERE.

If you would like to read about what my SPINAL TAP felt like, click HERE.

         In the end, you're responsible for your safety. I hope you take this seriously. Remember, the sights and sounds are beautiful, but it's your job to come back safe so you can get out there again!

So what can you or I do to keep ticks off of us? Number one, we can wear repellant (DEET, which is considered safe now or DEET free if you want to stay on the safe side) or permethrins. 

We can check ourselves for these critters (since we aren’t going to be avoiding the woods when the weather is nice again – we like nature too much to listen to that kind of hooey), and we can wear clothing that is long-sleeved and light colored as well as a hat. As for our pants, they should be tucked into our socks. There’s no point giving these alien invaders a chance to hit any flesh that they don’t need to be on.

          
          If worse comes to worse, and you get a tick on you, and you probably will despite your best intentions (as I will despite my own), use a forceps or tweezers to remove it. Then clean the bite off well and use antibiotic cream on the site. If signs of Lyme disease appear, be sure you're well-read on how to treat this onsite, at home, and at the doctor's office, when you go for your horse pills.

         Also, remember when asking people to perform a full body scan on the parts of you that you can’t see, please make sure that they are friendly people that you know. Random trail hikers might find this to go beyond acceptable levels of stranger danger... unless it's Naked Hiking Day (and yes that's a thing). That said, participating, in light of tick danger, not smart.

Paralysis Agitans: The Bombs of the Past Aren't Dead; They're Not Even Past

In our Parkinson’s lives, we are often asked about family history of disease. If you’re like me, you aren’t sure where the fault in genetics began. Sure, I knew about my Gram’s Alzheimer’s, but with 2 grandfathers that shuffled off this mortal coil before Roger Maris eclipsed Babe Ruth’s single season home run record (1961), my parents didn’t even know their fathers, so what would I know about them?

My mom’s dad lived longer than my dad’s dad. He passed when she was 8. My dad’s dad died before he was 2. When my mom’s dad died, a lot of connections to his side of the family vanished as her mom’s family was Catholic and he was Jewish. Had he lived, he would have probably converted. However, life happens, and well…. yeah.

The end of our connections to his side of the family vanished when my sister, at age 5 or so, asked my aunt Esther if she was drunk on Cold Duck at a family get-together. Most likely, she was, but she took exception to the comment, and I don’t remember much of Aunt Esther after that.

In the last week, however, my great grandfather Lewis, who I never heard of, came back to this English teacher with a vocabulary lesson and a premonition of the end of days.

Paralysis Agitans.

Well, fellow Parkies, here’s a history and vocabulary lesson. This is the former name for our condition. If you’re curious about what it was thought of in older days, here’s an excerpt from JAMA.

From his birth in October 1869 to his death in August 1928, Lewis, whose life had many different spellings and numbers attached to it from the census workers of the day, had a bomb in his body that was waiting to go off. At some point, like what happened to us or someone we love, it went off, and WHAM! Like with our lives, it was just waiting to cause havoc and destroy the central computer in our heads. See, that's what it's programmed to do, and it does it so effectively.

For a lot of Parkies, we wonder what made this condition we have happen. We look to the environment, and we look to nature. There’s a lot of interesting hypotheses without getting into conspiracy nonsense or BS reporting. One of these has to be what made us into us. Brain damage like Muhammad Ali? An immune problem that sends our body to fight itself? Something in mass-produced food? Could it be the mold in the areas we live?

No matter what, it’s a bomb going through time to find the next generation to keep living. See, that's what life does in replicating itself to go on without end.

Extinction is anathema.

Who in my family will be the next to find it’s a part of his or her life? I'm stop 2 in the journey. Who's up next?

And so I ask:

If there was a way to change the DNA code to make the genetic programming not give us this pile of fecal contaminants, should we find it and play God?

Are we ethically responsible to do this if we know we can stop this?

Sitting around thinking about a history of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s in my family, I wonder when the next bomb will erupt in the life of someone I love. Then again, with the time between dopamine loss in PD and symptoms presenting, it may already be detonating the framework of the stadiums of my loved ones.

No matter what thoughts you have about what's abovae, there’s a very specific person I worry about right now. I’m living vicariously through a lot of his youthful antics, hijinks, and accomplishments. It scares the bejesus out of me to think that someday…

Enough of that thought. It’s just too sad to think about.

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For those of you who are interested in the idea of “The Terrorist inside My Husband’s Brain” (as written by Robin Williams' former wife Susan Schneider Williams), check out this article. It’s one of the best I ever read about situations like ours (Williams had Lewy Body Dementia).

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Most definitely. 

Today is day 1 of Parkinson's Awareness Month. That said, for some of us, that month is every month, and that day (April 11th) is every day. 

Keep the faith. Never stop believing in the power of scientists and researchers to go Jack Bauer and stop the bomb once and for all.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to check out my Parkinson's page 

The Untold Story of the Second Date as It Was Finally Completed!

The Legend of Heather and My First Date is a story that is told often since it's the kind of thing that leads to marriages and tales for years and years later. You can read about that HERE (and yes, it's definitely worth reading!). While it's not "romantic" in that traditional sense, its combination of the Vince Vaughn movie Fred Claus, sugar free candy, nervousness, Match Dot Com, bad computer dating advice, sickness, and music somehow led us to a third date, but due to a minor fender bender that Heather was involved in, we never had a second date.

Today, we did.

That date was supposed to involve bowling, but since a snow-related accident left Heather sore, it wasn't possible to have a proper date that night, and though we still spent the evening together, we never had that date.

Now, after 10 years, we went with her brother Keith, his wife Karen, and his daughter Kendall, as well as her friends, to a bowling alley for her 7th birthday.

Now mind you, I haven't been bowling in a while, so I'm not rolling strikes or spares, but we did have a lot of fun doing our best to make the game respectable. Granted, a 76 isn't Kingpin or braggable, but I'm sure with a couple (dozen) games, I could break 125 again.

A lot of our relationship as of lately isn't about the big things. As I said, we do a lot of Groupon dates going to things like glow in the dark mini golf, ice skating, stained glass creation, and fishing for glorified minnows, but no matter what we do, it's always a good time (as Carly Rae Jepson and Owl City sing).

In the end, it's not the expense of the date. Most times, expense leads to lack of fun anyway. I can remember a first date nearly 2 decades ago where the gal and I ended up at a fancy restaurant (her choice), and she wasn't holding back on my expense with the things she was ordering, though I went with a burger to offset things.

In the "getting to know you stages," it's supposed to be about the conversation and mutual connection - not cost. Besides, in my time on computer dating sites, there were a lot of women that refused to be paid for out of a fear that they would be seen as "owing" something for it. Others insisted on coffee shop first dates to keep things slow and humble. I understood, and so I never minded. As for me, I  felt the chivalry thing to at least do the first reach for the check, but when it comes to expectations like those from the Princess of Clinton, New Jersey, at the get go, there seems to be a sense of dating one of the Real Housewives of Hell, which clearly meant no interest in a second date.

In the end, I guess I'm a lot like Billy Joel. "I just want someone that I can talk to... I (want to) love you just the way you are."

In the end, I'm happy to have a wife who isn't too full of herself that she won't do the alligator roll down! I'm happy that she's more concerned about fun than the number she ends up with.

I'm happy to have a wife who doesn't mind my drop leg / weird walk or inability to come off as some athletic prize jock on her arm, especially when I don't bowl strikes, throw touch downs, dunk basketballs, hit homers, or push weight after racing like I'm Usain Bolt. I'm even happier to sit here looking at a room full of pictures and memories that have happened since our first date.

And even if the revised second date is an appearance at a 7-year old's birthday party with bowling and Chili's (man, those Crispers are some fine chicken! You don't need to go all out on me to put the yum into it!), it's a good feeling to think of the past, present, and future of where we and I fit into all things as we spend time with her side of the family.

And so, yes, even if those first dates are done, there are still plenty of date nights and romantic getaways to enjoy! What would life be without experiences like that with Heather?!!

Here's to life, love, and the good things.

If you're reading this, I wish you the same joy.