Main » May 2007
May 17, 2007
Hand Me Down My Walkin' Cane
I had been mentioning to my wife Jan for a few days that I might benefit from the use of a walking cane. Especially when my balance is at it's worse and I am seeming to be in a constant mime performance of the "Fall Of The Leaning Tower Of Pisa".
At my worst, my balance is an issue. When I am at home, I can usually reach out and lean against a wall or piece of furniture to steady myself, but out in the garage, the yard, or anywhere else for that matter, recover from a loss of balance is often difficult.
So we decide it it might be worth our while to invest in a cane and see if it helps. I have a walking stick, like a hiking stick, which I have used when getting mail or walking the yard, but at 7 feet tall, it is a bit impractical to lug around or use anywhere but outside like that.
When Jan goes to the pharmacy next for our meds, she picks up a cane for me.
It looks like this, is sort of a bronze/copper color, and cost about $14.
My first impressions using the cane were good ones, I am consciously trying not to depend on a cane to walk, I am using it more as a steadying device as I go along. It is a reassuring thing to have along incase it is needed.
Walking cane vs Hiking stick:
-Cane is more portable and practical for use in home and out in public.
-Stick, I can already see, in the long run would keep me standing and walking more upright.
-Cane has handle and non slide foot at bottom, stick is just a stick with no safety features.
-Both allow me to have something to grip my hands on to when I am shaky, thus lessening the embarrassment in public and also making me more apt to want to get out in public.
-Cane blends in more publically. People see a cane and they understand the person might be having some form of physical problem. Walking stick is tall and bulky and might indicate anything from "I'm coming off a hike and am now at the 7-11 stocking up on cheesy poofs", " I just saw the movie 'The Ten Commandments' and it has caused religious psychosis to kick in, I am carrying a staff to be like Moses now. Let my people go!" to it perhaps being seen as a potential weapon. In a park, in the outdoors, hiking stick will do well, indoors it will seem too out of the ordinary.
-Side benefits of having a cane handy. Cleaning up around the house is made a bit easier by having cane to assist on bending and getting up and down. It's a little easier on the knees and back to have something to lean on. Cane extends reach on some things, which is always nice.
So anyway, I'm no expert, I've just been using the cane a couple of days, but I'm already finding good uses for it and that it does help me along.
So far I am also doing okay with the psychological aspects of using/needing a cane. It feels kind of like when I started balding (which was quite a rapid process in my case), I accepted it as a part of my life process and went on from there. So far so good.
I know I'll be writing more on this as time goes and things occur to me, but I did want to encourage others out there if you are having difficulty with your gait or balance due to Parkinson's and it is becoming a safety issue, consider a cane at least as a part-time solution.
I have been hoping a doctor might see me hobbling into their office and bring the topic up, but the way most doctor appointments are, the nurses walk you back to the exam room, take your vitals, get your story and then you sit till the doctor arrives. I have rarely been asked to demonstrate gait or balance so it is rarely addressed. This cane thing was a decision I needed to make for myself before I had a major fall which then might have alerted the medical professionals to my need for balance assistance.
More on this as the story develops.
Good Walking Cane Tips On This Site
A Site On Pimp Canes - Just To Keep Things Light
Posted by Lalo at 4:16 AM | Comments (0)
Using Google.com With Parkinson's
I was surfing around this mornng and came upon this site:
Which looks to be a place where Google introduces new features on the site. I was particularly interested in seeing that they are instituting keyboard shortcuts which minimize the need for clicking your mouse as much.
Here are the shortcuts they mention on this page, these seem the most useful to people with Parkinson's who have motor control difficulties and welcome any opportunity to avaid using the mouse and stick to the more stationary keyboard.
Thanks Google!
Key Action
J Selects the next result.
K Selects the previous result.
O Opens the selected result.
/ Puts the cursor in the search box.
Note - a couple of these keyboard tricks don't transfer on this page's layout due to it being in html-type language. Check out the site for fuul details.
Posted by Lalo at 4:05 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2007
Thank U
how bout getting off these antibiotics
how bout stopping eating when I'm full up
how bout them transparent dangling carrots
how bout that ever elusive kudo
thank you india
thank you terror
thank you disillusionment
thank you frailty
thank you consequence
thank you thank you silence
how bout me not blaming you for everything
how bout me enjoying the moment for once
how bout how good it feels to finally forgive you
how bout grieving it all one at a time
thank you india
thank you terror
thank you disillusionment
thank you frailty
thank you consequence
thank you thank you silence
the moment I let go of it was the moment
I got more than I could handle
the moment I jumped off of it
was the moment I touched down
how bout no longer being masochistic
how bout remembering your divinity
how bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out
how bout not equating death with stopping
thank you india
thank you providence
thank you disillusionment
thank you nothingness
thank you clarity
thank you thank you silence
Posted by Lalo at 7:35 AM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2007
One More Job I Am Woefully Unqualified For
Look At The Precision This Guy Works With!
The illustration shows a sculpture of Snow White, the wicked witch and all seven dwarves... on the eye of a needle! He has to work between heartbeats to keep himself steady.
Add it to my list of "Careers I Am Probably Never Going To End Up In"
LOL
Posted by Lalo at 10:05 PM | Comments (0)
May 8, 2007
Making Peace With Mr. Parkinson
Here's the thing.... (he said, jumping back in as if he hadn't been gone for over a year)... the past year has been eventful, but instead of cataloguing these happenings, I'll just report on what is going on right now, perhaps referencing the past as ir relates.
I am on a few medications at present. ReQuip, Sinemet and (trying out for a month) Rasagiline. The way the pills affect me is very cyclical, I take the pills evry 5-6 hours (except for the Rasagiline, that's once daily) and I notice very definable patterns. Namely the pills don't really last 5-6 hours. When I take my meds in the morning, it takes between an hour and an hour and a half for them to kick in, starting off the day pretty miserably, feeling stiff and groggy. Then the meds kick in ( I can actually feel the muscles waking up and beginning to work, I've descibed it to someone as feeling almost as if the very temperature of your blood changes.. like a sudden flush of slightly cooler blood is entering the muscles that are tight and curled up.). So I am feeling good for perhaps an hour or two before the first twinges of The Stiffening returns. I notice my feet beginning to twist inward, if I get up to walk, my leg begins dragging again and there is general discomfort and restlessness in my limbs until pill-time again and then I wait the hour or so beyond that for it to release into my system.
Well, that's how it is with me anyway, Parkinson's affects each of us differently, so your mileage will , no doubt, vary.
With these cycles which come up 3-4 times a day, it gets easy for me to forget, in the middle of a bottom-out that it eventually gets better. I get gripe-y, sarcastic and angry (primarily at my poor pitiful self).
Things I have noticed here of late:
1) I complain about the dependence I have on medication to feel better. I wax dramatic about being an addict and being hooked on pills, needing more and more to feel good. I need to flip that thinking to where I am thankful that there are pills available that help, even if they only give limited relief. My psychological resistance and resentment toward these pills might have a negative type placebo efffect, you see? If people can think themselves into healing by believing a sugar-bullet is medication, then it stands to reason that I can talk myself out of healing benefits of medicine by harboring such negative feelings toward it.
Make sense?
2) After these 6 years with PD, I realize that in many. many ways, I still do not accept the reality of it in me. I fight it, sometimes physically wrestling with uncooperative body parts by grabbing a weak and shaking arm and holding it down till it ceases quivering. Better way: relaxation, which is the opposite of my gut reaction. I need to re-think my definition of control, it is not always physical, it may seem that it takes more time and doesn't always work, but I need to calm down, breathe, and allow the muscles to loosen on their own.
My body goes through enough without me restraining it and, in a roundabout way, punishing it for what cannot be helped.
3) Acceptance is a key. I know that. What I don't know is how to gain that acceptance in myself. Part of my blockage in that is the mixed up thinking that acceptance equals surrender and that surrender means lying down and letting PD run all over me. I have tried the surrender thing, folks, believe me, I have laid in bed for days in dark depression, shaking like a leaf, thinking the blackest thoughts possible for we humans to think about their own existence. Sooner or later, I realized that I need to get off my butt, get up, go shave and take a bath, eat something substantial and for God's sake, move. So in me the giving up thing is a thing where, been there, done that, bought the T-Shirt.
So in writing this, let me put the question out to the universe, what does true acceptance of illness like this mean and how is it acheived?
And let me add here that when I say I am putting a question "out to the universe", that you, in reading this, might just be the holder of teh answer I am looking for, so please.. any insight you might have out there.. do not hesitate to pull up a chair and let me learn from you.
I know there are folks out there who have mastered this or at least are farther along the path with it than I am. Teach me what you know, ok?
I entitled this entry as I did because I feel this is the next step for me, making peace with my illness.
I will candidly admit that I have avoided reading about PD very much. I have joined online groups but not participated. I really have not yet taken this very seriously, counting on these pill salone to pull me through. Well, medicine alone is never the answer, I know, I can just hear you out there saying that to yourself. But I think that perhaps.... maybe.. a sign of my acceptance of PD will be when I look at my small stack of PD books and say.. OK, what next.. what else acn I do for myself.
4) Another hurdle for me has been my inability to be gentle with myself. I push myself, my internal baggage telling me that because I am unable to work, I better justify my existence soem other way, I can at least keep a clean house, putter around the yard.. dammit, be busy. But the reality is that in the cycle period I wrote about earlier, my hands become almost unusable.
Think about it, if you lost your ability to use your hands, how much could you accomplish? The reality is, there is very little we do without out hands.
I will end this here, I could go on and on, but that's what they invented next days and further entried for, right?
Thanks for reading,
Lalo
Posted by Lalo at 8:15 AM | Comments (2)
May 7, 2007
Be Back Shortly
New entry on the horizon.
This is more a test than anything.
Posted by Lalo at 6:10 AM | Comments (0)
