FLASH MOLASSES in "What's that smell?"

Click on image for full stereo sound and high-def video. Actually, not. But it WILL enlarge.

Coming up...

Hello Friends, Here is what's coming up: Meeting TOMORROW 1:00 p.m. at the Senior Center. Betty will lead a separate session for care partners. The rest of us will have "Open Microphone" sharing where we are with PD. Coming on November 18, Dr. Ro, of Swedish Hospital in Seattle, will give a talk at Alaska Regional Hospital. The topic is to be announced. If you plan to attend please RSVP to 425-433-8269

Dancing on Quicksand

So now I am "Former Daily News cartoonist" Peter Dunlap-Shohl. I knew this day was coming, and feared it. I've been cartoonist for the Daily News for so long, it was a major component of my identity. And before I became the actual Daily News cartoonist, I was an aspiring editorial cartoonist, going back as far as the fifth grade.

In the six years since my diagnosis, I have struggled to maintain my viability as a cartoonist. I've been dancing on quicksand, learning to use new programs and expanding into animation and increasing the writing I did for the paper. All the while trying to shrug off the weight of Parkinson's Disease as it dragged relentlessly at my every movement.

Then word came that our paper was looking for voluntary reductions in staff. Reductions that would be come involuntary should too few volunteers come forward.

After weighing my assets and liabilities, I decided that it was time for me to go. Time to step aboard, or maybe in front of, the Express Bus to the Future. Ironically, it is my experience with Parkinson's that helped absorb the blow.

After the initial shock and hysteria following my diagnosis, I discovered strengths, resources and skills I didn't realize I had. After surviving word that one has a debilitating progressive disease, loss of a mere job doesn't seem as momentous.

Plus I have a terrific support system of family and friends.

The upshot is that we are not brushing up on our street begging skills yet... although when we get there, we're going to have DESIGNER SIGNS, baby!

Announcing "Frozen Grin" Pete's new blog

Having ejected from the mothership into cyberspace, I have established a new cartoon and humor blog "Frozen Grin". This will be the home of my future editorial cartoons and animations. I also intend to post a variety of creative projects here and am excited about the possibilities.

The first post is the web debut of my newest animation, XT and Me, the second installment of my blockbuster space trilogy. To see the new blog, just click here.

Pete

FLASH MOLASSES episode 6: Flash gets severed

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Thank you, may I have another?

I am facing a buyout at work. There is one head on the chopping block in our little subdivision of the newsroom, and three candidates, two old friends and me. I am in a position to force out one of the old friends with less seniority, but frankly I think it might be pyrrhic treachery, as it will mean more work for those of us left, and for me, less cartooning and more writing. If I go, the sad reality is that they will be able to plug in generic cartoons that come cheap from Outside. If I stay I will have to maintain a pace that will be blistering. This is at odds with Parkinson's, to put it mildly. To paraphrase the immortal Scotty (Who, by the way, had PD) I am not sure I can take warp 8 much longer.

Pam has cleverly been recognized as too important to consider parting with, so if I leave, we will retain insurance. We have savings, last time I checked. And there is about half a year of severance pay available for me. Furthermore, My son's college is free to families making under $75,000 a year. I believe that in 5 years, I will be able to begin collecting retirement.

And I have a shoe card at Skinny Raven with several stamps that will get me well on my way to a free pair of running shoes. And my sense of humor.
I have made no decision yet. Cue The Clash, "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" I will keep you posted.

Our Next meeting...

Step right up, step right up, suspend your disbelief and hitch up your trousers, it's time for ANOTHER MEETING (Wild applause, whistling, shouts of approval.) The plan is to have nurse practitioner Mo Hillstrand as speaker. The time will be 1:00 on Saturday the 20th.


This was arranged by the folks at APDA so I don't now exactly what Mo plans to tell us but I do know that her practice is the one recently joined by the new neurologist here in town, Dr. Ellison.

Which segues neatly into the following HOT NEWS TIP: This selfsame Dr. Ellison will be the guest on "Line One, Your Health Connection, the local public radio health show. The subject will be Parkinson's Disease. It airs On KSKA fm 91.1 this Monday at 2 in the afternoon and again at 7. You can call in with questions during the two o'clock broadcast. Here is a general description of the show:


Host Dr. Thad Woodard and guests discuss a variety of health-related topics during this LIVE call-in show. Line One features local physicians and national subject experts from the fields of nutrition, childcare, pharmacology, surgery, psychology and more. Callers can talk one-on-one with each week’s guests and even participate online. Listen Mondays at 2:00 p.m. for the live broadcast or catch the rebroadcast at 7:00 p.m.

Your faithful servant,

Pete

Patience Pending

We people with Parkinson's are mavericks. We not only march to the beat of a different drummer, sometimes we don't march at all. In fact our theme song should be "I Ain't Marching Anymore" by Phil Ochs. Go with the flow? Not us. No flow, no go.


As members of a culture so manic that it has been forced to slice time into nanoseconds too small for any human to even perceive, we are the dissenting minority. While others multi-task all around us, texting their overfilled to-do lists to their partners while crashing their cars, we struggle to single-task, spending the morning buttoning our shirts or not tying our shoes.


This is role none of us are cut out for these days. Patience cannot be ordered over the Web and then delivered the next day in a brightly-colored Express envelope. Instead, we must learn it. And how do we do that?


Slowly.


Fortunately, we have many opportunities for practice. We spend countless minutes waiting for our meds to kick in. Dopamine brings a rush, but you can't rush dopamine.


Crossing a room can take on the quality of a major expedition, complete with danger. You may be in a hurry, but your feet are on their own schedule, and frankly, they're tired of being ordered around. They will get you there in their own sweet time. Push them too much, and you're going down hard, pal. They'll stick to the floor and you'll topple to their level with a thud that frightens everyone in the vicinity, with the exception of the mutinous extremities themselves. They're already safe on the floor. It won't be them that feels the pain. I don't know a single person with Parkinson's who has injured a foot in a fall.

So you learn not to rush your feet. They have the upper hand.

You want to practice patience? Try removing the cap from the bottle that holds the pills that enable you to take the caps off bottles. Hours of fun. The irony alone will amuse you for eons. Which is how long it will take to get to the pills.

The ultimate exercise for developing patience is the marathon wait for the cure. I remember a friend who bitterly observed that he had been assured that a cure was no more than a decade away. That decade has passed, and so has he. But bitterness sours the present for the sake of an uncertain future. So we need something to do instead of waiting. We have to work in the present to advance the progress toward the day when we can get back in the rat race with everyone else.

I'd love to just stop and smell the flowers, but ever the pranking poltergeist, Parkinson's even takes your sense of smell.

Pete's Parkinson's Portraits #6: Vincent Price

Click to enlarge (if you dare.)

Build Your Parkinson's word power! An Off & On series

As a lover of words, I've found Parkinson's Disease a source of fine specimens. Won't you join me as I hold a few up to the light and admire them?

Here's a beauty: Festination. It's the tag given to the shuffling swish-step that characterizes the typical PWP on a stroll. Your stride shortens, your gait increases, and pretty soon you're a festinatin' fool. It's annoying as hell to actually do, but doesn't it sound fun? Festive?

LEAD SINGER: "Brand new step, sweepin' the nation..."
BACK-UP SINGERS: "What's it called?"
ALL: "FEST-I-NA-TION!"
LEAD SINGER: "Just quicken that step and shorten that stride..."
BACK-UP SINGERS "Everyone loves that parkie glide!"
LEAD SINGER "Drive away dull care and frustration..."
ALL: "Everybody do the Festination!"

(repeat until you freeze or fall over)

Do you find that a little overwhelming? Perhaps what you are experiencing is Emotional Incontinence. There is no avoiding a bit of squirming when you encounter this coinage, which refers to a form of depression which involves experiencing episodic rushes of emotion wildly out of proportion to the stimulus. These rushes (for me at least) only occur in the company of others, and only when trying to discuss subjects that are loaded emotionally. It attacked me most often when talking with my son about family history or great musicians. Suddenly my face would screw up, my throat would choke and I would become unable to continue the conversation.

Confession: I enjoyed the cheap thrills this provided for a time. There was a sort of emotional drama that lent the illusion of great depth of soul to my everyday life. Over time it moved from entertaining to incapacitating. When it reached a point where I was getting ambushed by these gusts of sturm und drang with alarming frequency, it was clear it would be too much. So now I take a pill every morning to restore my normal shallow self.

One good thing about emotional incontinence. When you are so overwhelmed that you can't speak, you don't have to worry about Logorreah. Most of you don't worry about this under any circumstance, but I do when my meds are cresting and I spray words, thoughts, and incomplete fragments of both in the direction of innocent helpless persons, most often my wife. Then I have to clean up.

That wraps up this installment, must keep that logorrhea in check! We'll return with other great PD terms soon.