Land of the Rising Sun(day)

I had a somewhat "iffy" day yesterday (Saturday). I was a little off balance and had difficulty rising from the couch. It wasn't terrible - I didn't come close to falling, but it is a foreshadowing of things to come. I think slowness and mid-afternoon exhaustion, are the symptoms that affect me the most. Other symptoms seem, oddly, to come and go; for instance, my balance is no problem today. My right hand tremor does make an appearance periodically but it only embarrasses me. I find it annoying.

I had a lot of work to do this past week and the stress allowed the tremor to free itself from the drugs. To escape the rigors of work and to have some quiet time to enjoy my granddaughter, I went to the cottage on Friday. Just so I wouldn't get too far behind, I took along two files, only to find that one of them was empty. That was a minor upset compared to later that day when my beloved Blue Bombers played their way to their 6th straight loss. Their record is now one win and 7 losses and I can't see them winning again this season because, well...the team stinks! Anyway, that loss was enough stress to cause my tremor to reappear (I think Goldilocks and the 3 bears would be enough stress to cause the tremor to reappear). I used Michael J's strategy and kept my right hand hidden in my pocket when in public. Of course, this imbalance only increased my balance problems so I went to bed early. I awoke refreshed and ready to run. It was 4:30AM and the temperature was already 24C. I did my stretching routine and left the cottage at 5:15 and took the picture below at about 5:45. Now you know why I like to exercise at the break of dawn and why I am so relaxed and symptom free when I am finished.

Winnipeg Beach on a hot August morning

"The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature." (Anne Frank)

Stats for the last week - the total is now 16,005 page views.

• Canada 84
• United States 50
• Russia 23
• United Kingdom 16
• France 6
• Australia 2
• Netherlands 2
• Poland 2

The speed limit is my event horizon

We know what the speed of light is, but what is the speed of dark? Well, I know it all too well....the speed of dark is roughly equal to the speed at which I can run a mile and a half. Yes, I have pushed myself to that distance but with a burning chest and a lack of breath. I turn my ipod up high so I won't hear the scuffle of my shuffling feet - it is possible to shuffle while you run. Of course the resulting friction must be what is slowing me down because I want to go faster, but I am so much slower than pre - PD (almost 3 years since dx). Stockings run faster than I do. At my fastest, I experience the speed of dark, slow, oh so slow.

But....I am over the hill and gathering speed.

It has been 3 years and really, nothing has changed greatly - except for my loss of smell (I haven't smelled much for the past 20 years) and my loss of confidence in my speaking ability but physically, I am fit and the tremors are being held in check by the drugs.

I lose all my confidence when I open my mouth to speak. Word retrieval is nearly impossible at times and embarrassing silence can result in the middle of a sentence. Oddly, this condition is sometimes missing. It is like I have a multiple personality disorder. I prefer the garrulous one, even if he doesn't have much worth saying and anyway, nobody can hear him. Silence is my companion. Luckily, I have confidence in my writing. The words come easily and it always interesting to see in which direction they go and where they finally end up. No brain freezes in the written word and I am glad of that.

Just met with clients - no brain freezes today, some sputtering but I covered it up by sounding scholarly.

Just got the news. I am the only one available to babysit my 2 year old granddaughter for 2-3 hours tomorrow. I don't have any problem with that - unless I have to change her. Sense of smell or not - anybody got a spare hazmat suit?

That's all for now. I am going to lie down and imagine a world without the Kardashians.

I shake, therefore I am - PD philosophy for the modern world or, maybe it is just a rant.

For some reason PD has been in the city's media this past week, both TV and radio (and probably the newspaper, which I only buy for the sports page and the crossword puzzle). One PWP runs, if I remember correctly, 3 miles a day with a 25 pound weight in a knap sack on his back. Makes me jealous as I have only just made it back to my pre-PD warm up of one mile, no weights, and extremely slow. However he is only 48, 20 years younger than I. He could face many more years of dealing with the condition or maybe there will be a cure in his lifetime. Either way, he will be in good, albeit shaky, condition when the end game arrives. I doubt there will be a cure in my lifetime but one never knows. Anyway, I learned there are only about 6,000 people who have PD in my province out of a population 1.2 million.

Until you put something into perspective, you never know if you are cursed with bad luck or blessed with good luck. At 1 of 6,000 PWP, out of 1.2 million other people, I think I have enough perspective to conclude my luck sucks as far as PD is concerned.

However, I still consider myself to be blessed; after all, it is really the only bad luck I have had in 67 years, touch wood.

Thus endith my rant.

Here are the statistics for last week.

1. Canada 65
2. Latvia 35
3. United Kingdom 34
4. United States 23
5. Israel 13
6. France 6
7. India 5
8. Ukraine 3
9. Russia 2
10. China 1

Total to date - 15,210 page views. Thank you.

"I've got the brain of a four year old. I'll bet he was glad to be rid of it." Groucho Marx

I looked and behold a dark horse and he that sat on him was called parkinson's and dementia followed after.

Do I have to fear the possibility of dementia? The odds are against that little gem. As we grow older, we start to fear dementia, especially in the form of Alzheimer's. We worry when we deliberately enter a room and, once in it, we cannot remember why we are there. Don't stress. I am told that momentary loss of memory is not uncommon as we age. As a good friend once remarked - you don't have to worry if you can't remember where you just left your keys; you have to worry if you don't know what a key is used for.

It is estimated that later in life, PWP are at a 10 - 15% higher risk of dementia than people who have managed to avoid the condition. Pretty scary until you realize that less than a fifth of PWP will suffer from severe dementia in the later stages of PD. Most of us will not encounter the problem; we will remain sane most of the time and for those times in which we accidentally act crazy, we have a good, albeit false, excuse. So take this opportunity to place a lampshade on your head at your next party. People will laugh and might poke their neighbour and whisper "parkinson's" Take heart for as Albert Einstein once said:

A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?

Disappearing Ink

Thank God I took typing in school! My handwriting is becoming indecipherable. If I were to print the word "indecipherable" it would look something like this: Ideciphafsjfl. In other words, you would have great difficulty in reading the last few letters of the word. Apparently, I have lost all control. No matter what I tell myself, the muscles that control my fingers no longer have any allegiance to my brain and simply refuse to comply with its orders. The letters just start to disappear and, it can be a painful experience, both physically and mentally. Physically, it is the tenseness in my fingers that cause me problems. Mentally. Well, I used to have darn near perfect handwriting...enough said.

Strangely, my fingers co-operate when I am typing but sometimes they too try to sabotage me by hitting the same key 2 or more times while in a tremor.

Downright discouraging at times!

Will my handwriting ever return to normal? No chance. In fact it will probably get much worse. I have seen the writing on the wall. It is clear and succinct and it is no forgery.

Happy talkie talk, talkin' happy talk

Dysarthria is speech problem encountered by PWP. Symptoms include very quiet, soft speech and/or slow or incoherent speech. Since problems with the pitch and volume of speech are part of dysarthria, eventually speech becomes difficult to understand. The sufferer finds it hard to form the words that he wants to say. The result is pauses in the pattern of speech and the use of simple words, which are easier to find and express, along with simple sentence patterns to convey his thoughts.

Parkinson's attacks the speech muscles (called akinesia) causing them to weaken and become uncoordinated. Severity in PWP ranges from minor speech problems to incoherence. Unfortunately, estimates for PWP to have speech problems range from 60% - 90% and I am one of them! Seems odd because I have lived a charmed life and bad luck has always avoided me, until diagnosis about 3 years ago. However, I don't complain for three reasons (1) it won't help (2) my good luck has far exceeded my bad luck, and (3) nobody would be able to hear me anyway. So, I am learning to live with a speech impediment by remaining silent.

Silence is the safest course for anyone who distrusts their ability to speak.