counter

Monday 30 January 2017

WARNING

THERE BE SPAMBOTS ABOARD IN THE COMMENTS SECTION IN SOME ENTRIES. CURRENTLY THERE IS NO CURE FOR PD NO MATTER WHAT THEIR TESTIMONIALS SAY. IGNORE ANYONE WHO CLAIMS TO HAVE A CURE OR HAVE SEEN PEOPLE CURED. TO DATE IT IS NOT POSSIBLE..........SOON THOUGH.......YOU'LL KNOW WHEN THE REAL THING COMES AROUND`

Sunday 29 January 2017

Please help me, I'm falling

With the use of medication, falling is not a major symptom of PD; but, it does exist. To determine the reasons for its existence, I am going to divide PD victims into 2 categories: non fallers and fallers.

In my opinion, gate instability and lack of care are the two main determinants of falling but let's hear from the experts. An Australian group uses clinical tests to distinguish fallers and non-fallers.

"Get up and go test' the PWP stands from a sitting position in a chair, walks 3 meters and returns to sitting in the chair. Data are analyzed by, inter alia,

  • time taken
  • number of steps
  • reduction of arm swings,
  • heel strikes
  • use of walking aids.
  • Reaching forward from a standing position without falling or taking one or more steps forward.
Results showed that fallers were those who took frequent small steps and usually had a reduced reach. While interesting, no study has confirmed the usefulness of tests such as these in predicting falls.

So, if there is no test to account for falling, what causes it? Here is my humble, totally unscientific, offering based on the 4 or 5 falls I have had.

  • there is the problem of festination. Don't get me started on this phenomenon , if you don't recognize its onset and take steps to nullify it, it will have you on the ground before you know it.
  • falls are caused by not lifting your feet (heel-toe) and they scrape along the sidewalk making you a victim of any anomaly in the surface.
  • finally, there is the idiot syndrome, the best example of which is my last fall while going down the stairs with my hands filled with stuff at 4:30 AM, without taking care and not using the banister.
Those are my observations. I am a faller, how about you? I refuse to admit that age is a factor but on ne sait jamais - one never knows.

In any event, I plan to take care, especially going down stairs. I am tired of having my face looking as if I had gone 10 rounds with Sonny Liston.

Saturday 28 January 2017

I never worry about the future. It will arrive soon enough

I am sitting here, body is wracked with pain, especially my shoulders and lower back. But, I assure all of you who wrote to me both publicly and privately, I am all right.

A little old man was sittin' on a step
A tear trickled down his cheek
I said "What's the matter?"
He said,"I think some PD poltergeist pushed me down the stairs"
I said "Hmm. How often does this happen?"
He said,"Getting more frequent, sadly"
I said "why do you sit here and brood?"
He said, "I got the parkinson's blues so things are inevitable."
I said "reach out, take my hand, you'll understand
Baby everything is alright, uptight, outta sight. Baby, everything is alright, uptight, outta sight.

What really happened?

Just what I told you; one second I was on the stairs, the next I was lying on the floor, feeling my bloody head and worrying about the glass that would soon cover me. Then I am sitting in front of the computer wondering what to do. I had blacked out somewhere between the glass shower and the computer.

What glass? You never mentioned glass before.

You are right, I did not. Later that night, while I was lying down, snippets started to come back to me. I fell about 4 steps, not face first but feet first, and upon hitting the basement, I did a poor imitation of a forward roll and my left heel bashed against a life sized mirror leaning against the wall , causing it to shatter but no glass was released. I rolled some more, scraping my left cheek and hitting some object that gashed my forehead.

That is he extent of my memories, I still have no idea of how I got to the computer. Confusing? no. Scary, yes. Concussions never cause a giggle, no matter how minor. I should be worried and depressed; but Bill Cosby's song keeps playing in my mind:

Baby everything is alright, uptight, outta sight. Baby, everything is alright, uptight, outta sight.

Friday 27 January 2017

Go back to your corner. One, two, three.......

I think I fell down the basement stairs about 30 minutes ago. I remember feeling a little unsure of myself and the next thing I remember I was sitting at the computer looking at the screen and being uncertain of what to do next. Couple that with an open gash on my head and every muscle in my upper body in spasm and I have to conclude I took a header down those stairs. I must have been "out" for a second or two or more because I have a total blank about everything that happened during the time before I found myself at the computer.

Do Head Injuries Cause PD?

I have always wondered about this. In my youth, I suffered three or four concussions, minor ones in football,hockey and boxing. Did they cause my brain to start losing dopomine?

Dr. Barbara Changizi, a neurologist in Ohio, treated Muhammad Ali, and she noted that head injuries likely contribute to PD. She said:

Still, head trauma has also been linked with Parkinson's disease. In a 2013 review study, researchers found that people with head trauma that resulted in a concussion were 57 percent more likely to develop Parkinson's disease, than people who never experienced such head trauma.

Head injuries can cause inflammation in the brain, which may lead to changes in cells and brain structures that contribute to Parkinson's, Changizi said.

And injuries that specifically damage the part of the brain that contains dopamine-producing cells, called the substantia nigra, can also lead to Parkinson's, Changizi said.

After Ali's death, some people asked on social media sites whether Ali could have also suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a brain disease found in athletes such as football players who have experienced repeated blows to the head.

But Changizi said, "Parkinson's disease would be enough to explain a lot of his symptoms."

So, who knows? Maybe the "fun" I had in my youth has come back to haunt me.

Now, I'd better do something about my bleeding forehead and while you wait, read this.

.

In 1996, Ali faced down those fears on one of the biggest stages of all, when he stepped out of the shadows to light the Olympic flame at the Atlanta Games.

The debilitating effect of Parkinson’s was now evident to everyone watching the opening ceremony. His arms shook violently, as did his upper body, moving many in the arena to tears as he struggled to overcome the physical effects of his condition to hold the torch aloft, before reaching down and lighting the cauldron. Janet Evans, the American swimmer who handed him the torch, said: “It was all about courage. It was written all around his body that he was not going to let [it] do him in. He was still the greatest.”

Ali’s subsequent public appearances became ever more poignant, as Parkinson’s continue to ravage his mind and body.

In October last year Ali, a shadow of his former self, appeared at a Sports Illustrated tribute to him at the Muhammad Ali Centre, in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. His last public appearance came in April, when - hunched over and wearing sunglasses - he attended the annual Celebrity Fight Night dinner in Phoenix, which raises funds for treatment of Parkinson's.

It was a tragic end to what had been a majestic life, but Ali appeared to acknowledge it would in part be one of his own making.

In 1975, speaking about those punishing fights with Foreman and Frazier, he said: “I once read something that said – ‘He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.’ Well, boxing is a risk and life is a gamble, and I got to take both."

(Patrick Sawer, senior reporter, The Telegraph)

Monday 23 January 2017

The road less travelled by...Decision Time

Setting: time and geographical location in which the event took place

January 2017 at approximately 0600, on the Canadian prairies and in the 5th coldest city in the world with a population over 500,000. For the previous 2 weeks, the temperature, with windchill, hovers around the -30C to -40C then today it has settled in at +1C. A January heatwave has enveloped the province.

The Protagonist: Your hero is a very fit man of 70. He works out practically every day and is as fit as a man of 45. Ok, maybe that is an exaggeration. But, trust me, he is fit.

The Antagonist: PD, Snow, Stupidity. Take your pick.

Rising Action: It is unusually warm for this time of year. It is almost spring-like and it is at this time your hero decides he should get his trekking poles and do a 2 mile circuit. First he must find his poles as he has not used them a few months. Too cold to trek outdoors ergo, for the winter he prefers the warmth of his basement and the mind blowing numbness of the treadmill. Boring? You betcha! Warm? God, yes. Bring on summer. Winter is no longer fun. In fact, he thinks he may even be allergic to the cold!! Today; however, is a workout day and with the current temperature in the not life-threatening zone, your hero bounces into the night. His poles stab the snowy sidewalk and propel him onward. He feels good. After about 7 blocks, he is beginning to feel festinationary (I made up that word) and he sees two anonymous headlights coming straight at him. "Side walk plow," he curses. Your hero is no fool. He knows there is a another sidewalk across the street. He crosses the road only to find another plow heading his way.

Conflict: Whattodo? What should our hero do? He could turn around and go home, but that's not going to happen. He is left with a choice between homeward bound or taking a residential street about 2k from a school. The choice is easy, go to the school and cut through their yard. There is a sliding hill there to add to the workout. He treks to the bottom of the hill and sits down to make any festinationary feelings dissipate He skirts the hill (to much effort can cause festination) and surveys the school yard. He has a choice. He can take a path through the snow that has been beaten flat by the feet of hundreds of guys, or, he can take a shorter route along the fence until it meets an opening to the road.

Climax: For some unspeakable reason he chooses the fence route.

A decision that will live in infamy and which our hero describes as being "catastrophic".

Denouement: He is still a little uncertain, feeling the forces pulling him down and forward. He breaks into a festinating run and the inevitable happens. He falls forward and avoids a face full of snow by using his poles as brakes. He sees the beginning of a path along he fence but it is dark at 6:15 AM and he cannot see any openings. "There must be openings," he mutters aloud, and he continues his trek. The snow is getting higher and it is obvious the children don't play here. He makes his first fall, face first into the snow which, by now, has reached his thighs. His dignity is fading. He sees the opening 20 yards away and with much struggle and blue air, he festinates his way to the road. He makes it home safely, without incident, his body feeling as if he survived 10 rounds with George Chuvelo

Moral of the Story: Sorry there is none. However, as I sit here now, Frost's beautiful allegorical poem, The Road Not Taken is in my mind and I am here to tell you PWP, when confronted by a fork in the road, take the well used road and let the adventurers try the one less traveled by. It's not worth the effort and loss of dignity to wallow in the snow on the road not taken. Be a follower, not a leader (I am kidding)

Sunday 15 January 2017

Members of the PD tribe are forever bombarded with cures and rumors of cures.

The search for a cure is on and from all reports, it will soon be successful. Scientists from around the world are doing their best to help us.

Don't you wish that you could believe this? After all, we have heard it before, got our hopes up, only to have them discarded and thrown out with yesterday's newspaper.

But, we should look at research that seems to offer a glimpse into a satisfactory future. What work is being done on finding a cause of PD and knowing that, how can that cause be eliminated (if you know the cause, you can find a cure)?

Today, we will look at one possible cause of PD - Heredity. Genetics is thought to play a role in a small portion of the tribe. This theory posits that if the find the gene responsible for the fate of families which have a high rate of PD(about 10%) then we can apply that knowledge to the other 90%.

Late in the last century, scientists studied an Italian family which was prone to develop parkinson's. This family had relatives in the Americas and Europe (does that eliminate environment?) and a mutation in their gene was discovered. This mutation seems to cause the brain to create extra alpha synuclein, a protein found naturally in the brain but, when it starts to aggregate, it forms insoluble "clumps"in the brains of patients owning such diseases as Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies and multiple system atrophy. The same gene was found in an Iowan family with an unnatural high incidence of Parkinson's.

The tactic under study is to use lab prepared antibodies to attack the invading protein to prevent it clumping in the brain. In other words, the immune system would be the primary protector and champion of the brain in the war against PD.

Is this science fiction? No, a similar approach is in its late stages to develop a lab produced antibody in the case of Alzheimer's and so far, early results indicated a 71% decline in clinical dementia. Things are looking up but the development of the vaccine is slow and some scientists estimate it will be about 7, or so, years before such treatment will be available(2022 - ) Keep the faith. We have waited a long time; what's a few more years? And, if it works on Alzheimer's patients, there is no reason to assume it won't work on Parkinson's victims.

Continuing in a cure mode--😂--->

Saturday 7 January 2017

Par rump a pum pum

The phone call I am at home alone when my elder son phones me and tells me my wife suffered an allergic reaction to the chemo she was taking. "She is in the emergency room," he says and adds, "but she is OK. I have G and we are going down to the hospital. Do you want us to pick you up?"

For a second, I am in a state of disbelief. Allergic reaction? That's not that bad, is it? I think she will be home in an hour. "No, Just keep me informed." I tell him.

My son continues, "S (my daughter) is with her and she says it was scary but she is going to be fine."

They must be exaggerating, I tell myself, but I say,"OK, pick me up."

The gate keeper: We arrive at at the hospital. We go to the emergency room.

"Hold on there. Where do you think you are going?" It is the gate keeper, a sturdy lady who obviously has heard and seen it all.

We want to see a patient." T, my elder son tells her and, before the gate keeper can respond, he adds "She was brought here from the cancer unit with anaphylactic shock."

The gate keeper mumbles"Oh, that one." Her tone is softer. She picks up a clipboard and studies it. Her tone resumes its harshness. "All three of you can't go back there."

T takes charge "Understood, but this is her husband," He points to me. I say nothing.

"OK, you can go in. Follow me. You two stay here."

The numbers: The gate keeper leads me through two heavy doors that can only be opened with an ID card. We arrive at emergency and find my wife, looking very ashen. S is standing by by the bed, She is noticably very concerned. A slight sigh of relief lights up her face and she relaxes. My wife is barely aware of me. I take her hand and whisper in her ear. She smiles, sort of anyway. I look at the monitors that are connected to her. Pulse rate is rather high, I think. Blood pressure is....who am I kidding. Those numbers mean nothing to me. S sees me trying to make sense of the display.

"Blood pressure is low but way up from when it almost disappeared. Oxygen level is low. Heart rate's high but within the normal range, I think."

That's all I need to hear. S is very competent and confident. She and her brothers are well on their way to taking care of my wife and me in our old age.

"Where are T and G? she asks."

"They wouldn't let them in," I tell her.

"I will go and get them," she says and she leaves to do whatever she does when she sets her mind to it.

Time is on our side. S returns, followed by her brothers. They greet their mother and reassure her that she is OK. I turn to S and ask how she managed to get past the gate keeper.

"You know those doors that keep people out? The ones that you need ID for? Well I waited until someone opened them and I stuck my foot in to prevent them closing while I motioned to the guys to come quickly. No problem."

My kids constantly amaze me.

It is now about 6pm. S and my wife have been at the hospital since 9:45am. We chat about the usual family matters and laugh at memories. It is time well spent. As a busy agent, T is able to work at his job by text messaging. S gets her phone out and looks for trailers capable of moving 2 kayaks and a canoe to our cottage. What a world! Information is just a button away and my wife is hooked up to Star Wars machines.

Denouement: G left earlier to catch a bus. but before he left, he said he is going to move in with my wife and I (if necessary) and take care of us, (including doing the cooking) for as long as it took (Incredible). S and I linger on at the bedside for awhile longer. My wife has been sleeping for most of the visit. We are told she would not be released until at least 10pm. S drives me home and, almost at 10pm on the button, she gets a call from T to come and pick up their mother, who is pretty near normal. What a day!

What had happened? I will tell you her story as S told us in the first person singular - pretend S wrote this:

:We got there on time and mom was hooked up to the chemo drip. When the initial chemo drip was finished; another bag, with a different chemical was attached. Mom started to complain of itchy palms. Within minutes she was not making sense and then she could not talk at all. She tried to say something and her head fell sideways and she was not breathing. I yelled "Somebody help my mother". A nurse came in, saw she situation and shouted "Call a code blue!" Well those were the magic words as doctors emerged out of the ether and mom was surrounded by white coats. The non medical people were told to leave the room. We did, but I found a place to watch. Moments passed. A women in civilian clothing came out to see me, a social worker I guess. My heart fell. Was she going to hold my hand and tell me the unspeakable? She smiled and assured me all would be good, that it happens all the time and, she added sheepishly

"Is this a palliative situation?" (social worker speak for "Is she terminal?")

"NO! She...It is not." I said, all the while thinking, "Leave me alone." I know she was trying to get my attention away from the code blue, but I wasn't in the mood. I stood silently and watched anxiously. Finally a nurse saw me and told me mom was being moved to emergency where they would monitor her vitals and when appropriate, she would be released to home...

Well, all's well that ends well, particularly if it ends in you favour. My wife is her normal self, thank God.

Kind of puts it all in perspective vis-a-vis slow moving PD,does it not?

I have become a great believer that stress exacerbates the symptoms of PD. That's for a future entry. For now it is what it is (God, I hate that phrase!). Whatever "it" is, it has made us all realize there is an expiry date hidden somewhere among our official records.

Will you be surprised when yours arrives?

Monday 2 January 2017

Hallucination - A species of reality.

They're back, those fleeting hallucinations brought on by exhaustion. Exhaustion brought on by PD. Therefore, at this stage, by the axiom of equality, PD is the nexus of my problem with, ahem, ghosts.

Do you want examples? Of course you do.

Okay, at this moment, I "feel" a rather large man looking over my right shoulder trying to see what I am writing. I move my shoulder to block his vision. I look and see nothing. None of these apparitions are at all scary and can be somewhat humorous. Try this one on for size, a couple of days ago, while watching a hockey game on T.V., the linesman, charged with dropping the puck for a face off, entered the screen, riding on a bicycle. A shake of my head got rid of that particular notion.

Yes, PD can have its unusual themes. They are rare and uncertain and for now, they do no damage. If they become more real, I will not escape PD unscathed.

I read somewhere (newspaper, I think) that Nietzsche commented that certainty can cause more damage than uncertainty, (something along those lines). If that be true, we are all (you choose)

  1. doomed /
  2. on the right path
  3. none of the above.

Genuine hallucinations or delusions are more common among long term, elderly, victims of PD less common, but still occur in the young. If you have hallucinations like mine, sit back and enjoy the short visits they make.

It is theatre of the absurd.

Sunday 1 January 2017

Thoughts from a shameless gandy dancer

I confess I am still suffering from melancholy. Just a tad. Don't worry. It will pass when I collect my thoughts and realize realty can be unreal.

This mood was brought on by the newspaper in which the editor felt it necessary to include 6 pages of expanded obituaries of celebrities who died in 2016. This annual death roll, while somewhat interesting, gave me pause. It was just a morbid page filler, but it included the deceaseds' ages at time of death.

Whoaaa! Wait a minute, they were all around my age. That sent me to Google. I needed to look up the average life time for Canadians. Females 81, males 77!!!! That only gives me 6 more years! But, I am still young. My physical fitness rivals that of a 50 year old.

Heart? Great, strong.

Lungs? Fantastic.

Mind, noisy but positive.

Yes, I am in great shape at almost 71.

But, there is just one thing.

I have parkinson's disease. And, after a plateau of 6 years, the disease is progressing. That evil SOB is going to win.

However, I will not let it get me down. My melancholy is fading. I can hear whispers in a far off room. They give me hope. New drugs, new therapies, and hey, maybe even a cure. Those whispers are getting louder, becoming real. They lift my spirits.

I intend to live beyond 77 and when I die, free of PD, promise me you will cremate my body and have my ashes spread on Michelle Pfeiffer.