Columns

I hate facing the effort it takes to start daily exercise. I hate the way I feel the next day — like I have been pummeled with nunchuks. But ever since my Marine Corps training I have enjoyed the benefits of exercise. I know it is hard to get…

In the same way a wildfire can take your breath away, so can a flower. Especially if it’s standing amid charred, blackened earth. Once there stood tall majestic black oaks, madrone, manzanita, and pine trees. Now there remains only ghostly profiles of those trees, their leaves and bark burned bare.

I was doing OK until I read the title of a webinar: “Navigating the New Normal.” Then it hit me — there is no normal. As they say, normal is just a setting on your clothes dryer. There is no normal in disease, and there is no normal in life.

Sirens, flashing red and blue hazard lights, and Dr. C slumped in a gray felt recliner with the pallor to match. A greatly worried Neo (the neocortex of Dr. C’s brain mentioned in previous columns) exclaims, “What is going on here?” Mrs. Dr. C pokes her head out from around…

Stuart Scott, ESPN’s beloved late sportscaster, once said, “You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and in the manner in which you live.” I say you beat Parkinson’s disease the same way: by how you live, why you live, and the manner in which you live.

Driving. It’s an everyday activity we take for granted, and one more piece of our independence that Parkinson’s disease may eventually take from us. Driving is a complex task that becomes increasingly difficult as Parkinson’s progresses. However, many people with young onset Parkinson’s hope to continue driving for years…

With Parkinson’s disease, sometimes it feels as if I’ve been carrying a ball and chain around for years. Those chains have the ability to pull me down into shades of darkness if I let them. I admit, sometimes I allow access because my reserve gets low — I don’t have…

Hell on earth, that’s what it was. I was shocked by becoming legally blind in addition to worsening Parkinson’s symptoms, including what I call SEM (surges of exaggerated mood) attacks, chronic pain, and fatigue. People used to say, “You don’t look like you have Parkinson’s.” But recent…

It may take a while to get a diagnosis for Parkinson’s disease. You may see several neurologists, physicians, or movement disorder specialists before receiving correct results. It’s easier to diagnose Parkinson’s when a patient has the classic symptoms: tremors in one or both hands, changes in handwriting, or a…

Ever since I can remember I have kept a journal. People use journals to record their dreams, prayers, activities, and even the weather. In the end, our journals are thrown away, burned, or lost. Our thoughts, dreams, and prayers disappear with our last breath. So why keep a journal that…