February 12, 2011. A Life Shaken My Encounter with Parkinson's Disease

"...I'm flat on my back on a couch that's too short in a windowless room in the bureau. I can't even sit at the computer, much less make the keyboard work. My arms and legs are shaking uncontrollably. A;though I am only 53 years old, I have already been struggling with Parkinson's disease for seven years. And right now the disease in winning." A Life Shaken My Encounter with Parkinson's Disease by Joel Havemann, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

Damn it! This is the book that I wanted to write. I started to read this yesterday. Made it about half way through the book. I'll finish it today.

Mr. Havemann, lives his life the way I would like to live mine. He is realistic about the disease. Yet at the same time goes about his life as best he can. After being diagnosed he was the caretaker for his aging father. He helped raise his three children. He also continued to work as an Editor for the Washington bureau of the Los angeles Times.

He, like me, had the support of his family ad co-workers. Not everybody does. He tells stories of people in his support group, who when their employers found out that they had Parkinson's, the employer made life on the job very difficult.

Parkinson's takes some adjusting. Mr. Havemann chose to immediately tell his friends and co-workers. This wasn't my strategy. His approach was very successful.

He learned all that he could about the disease. My approach, at first, was to stick my head in the sand. I've long since changed that approach.

He's concerned about dying with some sort of dignity. This scares me more than anything. I don't think that people are afraid of dying, they're mostly afraid of the journey. Dying doesn't scare me. Either I'm right, and there is no afterlife, in which case, I'll never know. Or others, who believe in an afterlife are right, in which case, I'll take Woody Allen's advise and pack a change of underwear.

I look forward to finishing the book. Mr. Havemann's approach an optimism is something that I'd like to learn from.

January 8, 2011. Peter Pan

"Of course there was Old Greggor and his son Young Greggor. Oddly enough, Young Greggor's son was older than Old Greggor. Nobody could figure out how that happened. " Woody Allen, Love and Death

There is supposed to come a time in life where roles between child and parent reverse. The time when the child looks out for the parent.

Due to numerous circumstances, least of which is not my own doing, that event has not completely occurred in my life.

My father died two years ago. My family is convinced, if not for my mother's dedication and diligence, it would have occurred much sooner. Out of respect for my mother, I won't say her age. But, you know my age, so you can calculate the range. She looks and acts 20 years younger.

Mom lives in a wonderful apartment in Manhattan. They purchased this about 25 years ago. This location affords her the opportunity to take classes, go to museums, the opera etc...It basically keeps her young.

Regardless of my mother having discovered "the fountain of youth," why am I still playing the role of child?

Is it Parkinson's? To a limited degree, yes. It would be easy to make PD a scapegoat for my shortcomings. To be frank, I never took the role that I should have. I've remained Peter Pan.

I'm lucky, my Peter Pan life style has only affected my ego. It could have been a lot worse.

January 1, 2011. The Doctor is In.

Why do I write? Is it because I am going through a midlife crisis, and I can do this without guilt! How can you suffer a midlife crisis at 54? A male with PD is not likely to make it to 108. Calling it a late in life crisis sounds too depressing. So I'll continue my state of denial and call it a midlife crisis. Basically, I write because I can and it's what I've always wanted to do.

Do I think that I'll be published? Well a boy can dream! I've done nothing to further that ambition. Maybe that way I cannot consider myself a failure.

The first thing that I wrote that showed any talent, was a parody in High School called "The Spiro Agnew Show." The basic story line was that Dick Cavatt was replaced for the night by the then Vice President Spiro Agnew. It went over well in front of a bunch of Liberals.

Then as a senior project a good friend and I wrote a book about our High School. Upon recently rereading the book, I found it to be at times very funny, but at times mean spirited. For that reason, it will never see the light of day again. Although we got a fine grade on the project, it was extremely amateurish.

My friend, before he passed, went on to become a writer of some renowned. The fact that we didn't see each other for the last 10 years of his life, will forever haunt me.

I am an Attorney. I hate being an Attorney. I may be the worst Attorney in the world. Then again I may be the best. Why the contradiction, because I am not a prick! To be a great Attorney you may have to be devoid of sympathy, compassion and anything else that separates us from the Republicans. I am not devoid of these characteristics, hence I am also not rich. Oh, I do a good job for my clients, it's just that I fail sometimes to do a good job for myself.

I am a New York, Liberal. As you may have already guessed I grew up in a Woody Allen movie. I am married to a very fine woman, but I don't know if I treat her as well as I should. I am lazy, I've always been lazy. I believe "Don't do today what you can put off until tomorrow." Maybe writing will be cathartic, and I will change.

The combination of laziness and guilt is not good. I still feel bad about not handing in my English essay to Mrs. Feldman 37 years ago. I guess it's time to get over it.

Many questions occur to me. I wonder if I'll be too lazy to continue this blog. I wonder if anyone will care. I wonder if Rodriguez can survive on $275,000,000.00. I wonder who are the 9% who actually approved of Dick Cheney were. He made me long for the days of Spiro Agnew. I wonder if Ann Coulter's parents are embarrassed. I can see them walking around with a fake nose and glasses.

One reason that I write, I sure is for therapy. This is my couch, and you are my therapists. So put up a sign, that says "The Doctor is in." Charge me my nickel and let's go.

November 24, 2010

Am I getting spiritual is my old age? To me religion has merely been a punch line. The only time that I can ever remember seriously asking for help from a greater power was when I was in a multi car accident on the Grand Central Parkway. At that time I figured, "it couldn't hurt."

The whole thought of an invisible man in the sky, I find incomprehensible. Yet I find a spontaneous explosion equally incomprehensible. Don't get me wrong, I'm not like Mickey Mantle, who after a life of heavy drinking and womanizing found God on his deathbed. I would say that my thoughts are similar to Woody Allen's thoughts, "I'm what you'd call a teleological, existential atheist—I believe that there's an intelligence to the universe, with the exception of certain parts of New Jersey."

Why these spiritual thoughts today? Because it's Thanksgiving, and I have a lot to be thankful for. My wife who looks after me, when I refuse to look out for myself. My father, who although gone these past two years, is with me at all times. My Mother, who installed in me a sense of family. My brother and sister, who are my best friends.

I can barely run, walking is a struggle at times, but I've got more to be thankful for than to be angry about.

November 20, 2010

When did my PD start?

Nobody knows. The first signs that there was definitely something wrong came about a year and one half prior to being diagnosed. That evidenced itself, in of all places, my handwriting. My penmanship, which was bad to begin with, got progressively smaller. This, I later learned is a common symptom for people with PD called micrographia.

What caused this?

Again nobody knows. Sure they can give the chemical answer that "Parkinson's disease is caused by the progressive impairment or deterioration of neurons (nerve cells) in an area of the brain known as the substantia nigra." http://www.webmd.com/parkinsons-disease/parkinsons-causes. Say that to me and I say that, "I thought that it was because I had an overextended Humperdink that rubbed against my Frumpsh." It has no meaning to me.

Is it hereditary? In rare cases. Not in mine. I know of no blood relatives who have had the disease.

My physical therapist, thinks that a car accident that I had when I was 25 may have been partially to blame. I'm not convinced.

When I look back now, I was always unusually stiff and clumsy. Is there a possibility that I've always had the disease? Nobody has convinced me otherwise.

Parkinson's strikes one side first. Mine was my right side. Since I am extremely dominant right handed, I'm not sure we would have diagnosed it yet had it been my left side.

What lies ahead, is retraining my brain. "My brain: it's my second favorite organ." (Woody Allen, Sleeper, 1973). I can still do most things, however my brain just doesn't know it. (Feel free to put in punchlines).

When my Doctor diagnosed me, all that I knew about the disease was that Michael J. Fox, Muhammad Ali and Janet Reno all suffered from it. I asked my Doctor, "What's the Prognosis?" I don't remember his exact answer, but I do remember thinking that it isn't fatal and the course is unknown.

August 25, 2010

This is a strange disease. There is absolutely no pain, yet it's a struggle to do the everyday activities, that once came so naturally.

First of all, my inner thermometer is out of whack. On Humid days, like today, I'm likely to go through the "flop sweats." The water will pour out of me like a faucet that can't be shut. Now there are three of you lovely ladies, who in our younger days dated me. Now aren't you upset that you don't get to live with this?

Sometimes it's a struggle to walk the streets of Forest Hills. They got rid of the Forest, but left the Hills. I sometimes rest in MacDonald Park. I wonder if, to paraphrase Woody Allen, I'm going to become one of those old men who sit in the park and scream about communism?

I still look at it as an inconvenience. I have to. I've been through the period of depression, and it's a waste of time. Once it's over you've accomplished nothing and you're back where you began.

I want to be able to do just what I've always done. I want to swing a bat, catch a ball, take a jump shot (even if it is with a 1 inch vertical leap), take my walks in Central Park. Last Fall and Spring the sweats went away. I hope that they do again this fall.

Somebody commented today about my joking about the PD. I have to. I'm happiest when I laugh or make somebody else laugh. I'm not blind to what may happen, but so far it's progressed very slowly. So I'm going to go on, and you will be my audience (or victims) for my jokes, my puns an occasional limerick, and the rants of a curmudgeon.