Mash-up: Parkinson's and Poetry Month

Yes. it's Shake-Speare, You've been warned!

It’s Parkinson’s Disease awareness month. It’s also Poetry Month. Furthermore it’s the cruelest month, according to Poet T. S. Eliot. (Who did not have Parkinson’s) So what does this all add up to? Time to write cruel Parkinson’s poetry, of course! 8, count ‘em, 8 PD limericks  here 

Monday Meeting with Speech Pathologist Anne Ver Hoef UPDATE

Hello friends, Anne Ver Hoef who is coordinating the new speech  practice meetings for people​with PD asked me to pass along that the next meeting, Monday Dec. 18 at 3:30 will be held in classroom 1, NOT the Ivy room.  Classroom one is downstairs in the bldg closest to Airport heights Dr. in the AK Regional complex.​ This should be a helpful activity that aims at preserving and conserving our ability to communicate, which is key to quality of life. Anne is the bee's knees, so this meeting is highly recommended.

I Said, Late-Breaking Meeting, Speech Therapy for PD

Hi folks, I just received a note from Rock-Star speech pathologist Anne Ver Hoef who has this to say "I’m organizing a PD speech group: meeting Monday, Nov 13 at 4:00 pm at Denny’s on DeBarr Rd, back room. I️ have invited several people but got behind in timeliness. Sorry for late invite. I️ don’t know if this will be a 1-time thing or if there is interest in group that practices skills and strategies and meets somewhat regularly." As many of you know Anne is a terrific therapist and a stellar person to boot. This is bound to be a fruitful use of your time.  I hope it isn't too late for you to adjust your schedules to attend this clambake.

Think LOUD,

Peter

A Day With Parkinson's Disease, Final Page!

More with a whimper than a bang- the final installment of A Day With Parkinson's Disease. A few thoughts to close with. First, everybody has a different case of Parkinson's Disease. Some have no tremor, some have strongly predominant tremor. Some progress through the disease stages quickly, some slowly. Some are affected more on their right side, others on the left, and so on. So a day with PD is likely to be very different from one individual to another. And one person can vary substantially from day to day. I took notes all day on a day chosen at random to base this narrative on. It is faithful to those notes for that day except for obvious exaggeration for humor, i.e. exploding curry. If I seem to be coping well, it's more due to luck than personal virtue. First and foremost I was lucky to marry a person of great steadfastness and understanding. Second I am benefiting from years of patient and difficult research and the imaginative thinking of doctors, scientists and patients who have collaborated over the long run to find the medications and surgical procedures that I benefit from every day. Without them I would be bedridden right now. Finally, thank you for reading and commenting. Your thoughts and observations help me to clarify what I do and where it goes. A cartoonist without readers is a bird without a sky. The entire project is collected and sequenced here.

Can you Keep a Secret? It's Parkinson's Disease Awareness Month

Pssssst... keep it under your hat. Don't tell a soul. This is your-eyes-only stuff on a strictly need to know basis, and yes, I'll have to kill you after I tell you. Can you handle the truth? It is, believe it or not, Parkinson's Awareness Month.

Once again April, in all her cruelty, demands that an oblivious world divert its attention from the disaster in Japan, War #3 in Libya, and even the lovely locks of Justin Beiber to (ahem) us.

April is the time we are supposed to raise our soft slurred voices in a cry for attention. A cry to which the World will likely reply "What? Couldn't catch that. Come again?" And who can blame it?

With the thousands of worthy causes out there demanding attention through such tired devices as "awareness" months, how do we get the world to focus on our particular little tragedy? That is the question of the moment.

But is it the right question? Isn't a better question why should anyone care? Given all the other sad, desperate conditions and predicaments that humanity faces, what can and should we do to make it worth the World's time to devote its distracted mind and heart to us?

Let's begin convincing people PD matters by ditching Parkinson's Awareness Month. Reserving a month for PD awareness leaves eleven months for Parkinson's obliviousness. We need to let people know they should care about Parkinson's Disease year-round. How? For a start, if you are hiding your PD, come out of the closet and let people know. This is especially important for young-onset patients. I have met good doctors that couldn't believe I had PD because I'm "Too young". An invisible problem is not going to rise to the top of anyone's to-do list. You must allow people to see your predicament before they can feel compelled to confront it. If you're not part of the problem, you're not part of the solution.

So you boldly step out of the closet. That's a start. What next? You have to show you care. If you can't be bothered to resist Parkinson's Disease, why should anyone with a less obvious stake in the matter be bothered? If you need some ideas about how to do this, no worries, here are a few. Start a blog, volunteer as a PD research subject, join a support group, get involved in a fund raising event. With a little enterprise on your part every month will become Parkinson's awareness month. People will be eager to cure it just to make you go away.

Learn what you can do to take better care of yourself. Whether the Lord helps those that help themselves or not, I do not know. But I am convinced that people are more apt to help out when they see you are trying to make your situation better rather than shrugging your shoulders and waiting for the next blow. Get speech therapy, work those stiff and sore muscles with regular exercise. Eat right. Manage your medication well. Do your research and learn all you can about how you can function more effectively in spite of what this disease will do to drag you under.

Whew, that'll easily fill up a year. A person might be forgiven for wondering if there is no simpler way to inspire interest and compassion from a stressed out over-busy world. Actually there is. But it would be wrong to wish PD on Justin Bieber.