I’ve never told you about falling on top of the doctor. That means I’ve also fallen behind in keeping you posted on Parkinson’s progress. OK, an overdue update: The Progress is, well, progressing. Some days my balance is really good, not even calling for use of a cane.
Other days, it’s crazy. I reel as I walk, moving forward like crab, scuttling one way and then the other. And I fall down more than I used to, typically forward while walking, or sometimes toward left or right. To wit:
At a Quaker weekend earlier this month, I was standing in a pleasant crowd, waiting to enter the dining room.
Nothing was under way but good conversation. But I fell down. In mid-sentence, standing absolutely straight, I was suddenly falling to my right without the slightest instinctual reaction to raise an arm to break the fall.
Three Friends grabbed me before I whacked head and shoulders on the bottom of a staircase, and they stood me up. I felt like a fool but was unhurt. That’s the way it can happen.
It was a bit different, though, when I fell on top of the doctor. I still feel bad about that, but not guilty. She asked for it, damn it!
As my splendid Bassett neurologist has helped Anne and me get a closer understanding of my state, we’ve been referred for several specialized motion disorder clinics. We’ve been twice to Johns Hopkins’ Dr. Zoltan Mari, a really big dog in the field, who said that Bassett was on exactly the right track, but that my symptoms would have to “mature” more before there could be an exact diagnosis.
We’ve been several times to Albany Med, and once down to the City to Columbia Med. That’s where I fell on the doc.
I liked her as soon as she came bustling down the hall towards us. Short, no-nonsense, she seemed the very archetype of a NYC medical professional. When she began to talk, it was clear that she was very sharp and hadalready analyzed closely all the materials sent down from Bassett and Albany Med. Her examination of me was perfunctory, pretty much just a few taps with a rubber mallet and a rotating of wrists and elbows to check for “ratcheting.”
No questions at all about the symptoms that are not physically evident, ones that every member of our support group confirms are part and parcel of their condition.
“Let’s go out in the hallway,” the doctor said. “I want towatch your walk and then test your balance.” I dutifullywalked the length of the hall and back, and then she stood me sideways. “I’m going to stand behind you and pull you back by your shoulders. You’re going to resist the pull as best as you can.”
Whoa! I explained that I have no balance control in that direction, that on stairs I have to cling to the banister and lean forward for fear of toppling backward. But she was already behind me.
“Are you ready?” she said, and tugged firmly. And I toppled backward. Now, I’m about six feet tall and just over200. She’s around 5-feet four and probably weighs 130. I slammed her back against the wall.
She did not take it well. Pushing me back to my feet, she growled angrily, “I have a bad back, and now I have to go take a Tylenol!” She stalked off down the hall.
Anne and I looked at one another and then went to sit meekly back in the examining room. When the doc returned, the consult ended abruptly.
“Look,” she said, “I don’t see Parkinson’s Disease here. You don’t have any of the classic physical symptoms except for dry skin over your eyebrows. Maybe you should seek psychiatric help.”
This was breathtaking. I have great respect for psychiatry and, who knows?
Perhaps there is a psychological dimension to my condition — at very least as effect, if not contributing cause. But the doc’s dismissal of several years of careful observation by skilled colleagues struck me as unfair, wrong.
Anne and I thanked her and left. As we walked down the hall, we held hands, both feeling we probably wouldn’t be coming back there. But then I realized and said something very important.
“You know, we’ve been going to these consults, trying to get a specific name for what’s going on in me. Well, we don’t need a name. We’re in great hands at Bassett and maybe should just follow the Hopkins doc’s prediction. As symptoms mature, a diagnosis will follow.” And then I added something that I’ve been living by, ever since.
“I’m not going to carry myself around like a bone china cup on a saucer, scared that I’m going to drop and shatter. No more! I’m going to be a good sturdy mug, stoneware, the kind with room to get three fingers gripped through the handle. That’s the way I’m going to carry myself!”
And so I have, ever since.
And that wonderful change, not in condition but attitude, came because I fell on the doc! So I’m grateful and hope her back’s just fine. And maybe she learned something from our encounter. Not about me, but about herself.
I guess that one reason that I haven’t been keeping you posted on Parkinsonism and me is that I’ve been wrapped up in finishing “Wobbling Home,” a book on the subject. It’s out now, and, to my shock, is already selling in Canada and Great Britain. That’s the way of modern publishing.
One Friday, Sept. 23, (tomorow!) Bassett Healthcare’s Neurology Department is sponsoring a second launch for “Wobbling Home.” It will run from 4:30 to 6 pm in the lobby of the Clinic Building facing River Street.
The launch is meant to highlight the book for Bassett’s own personnel, but the general public is welcome, too.
There’ll be refreshments and music from Katie Boardman’s dulcimer. You’re all invited!
Columns
From Fly Creek: A good sturdy mug
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From Fly Creek: Revving up for spring
Time to bring you up to date on Fly Creek’s happy clambering into Spring. First, the eatery scene. “Is Jerry’s open yet?” The answer is, “Oh, yes!” The porches are freshly stained; the lawns a uniform green, and the hop vines are already climbing the posts on the covered side deck. Blue and I went up there to lunch earlier this week, and I celebrated spring with my traditional bacon, onion and Swiss cheese hamburger. We two sat on the deck, enjoying the broad view and some spectacular clouds marching across, up toward Schuyler Lake.
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In These Otsego Hills: More from 1986 ...
This week we continue with the discussion of telephone service from the pre-dial days. On March 12 we noted that: “No one has yet produced a telephone directory from pre-dial days, but Doug Preston of New Hartford recalls that some business (which one?) in the village had the phone number 7.”
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Home Notes: Celebrations abound at the Thanksgiving Home
April was a month of celebrations and much to appreciate. We had a 90th birthday celebration for Wanda Noyes on April 4 including her family and friends. Personal care staff Dee Bouck worked with residents to hand paint Easter eggs for the tree in the activity room.
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In These Otsego Hills: 1986 continues ...
This week we continue our journey through the columns of 1986 with the answer to the question “for whom, according to tradition, was Hannah’s Hill named?”
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Book Notes: Baseball book features local contributors
Baseball is part of the nation’s fabric. Most kids have a memory of the game either from playing Little League, attending a major league contest or meeting a favorite player. In Cooperstown that feeling is magnified since we are the official home of baseball. We get to see firsthand what has made the sport the national pastime.
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From Fly Creek: Ya really wanna know?
SETTING: Fly Creek General Store. CAST: Assorted seated geezers, drinking coffee. [Door opens, enter heavy-set geezer; walking slowly with wide stance, maybe prostatitis.]
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In These Otsego Hills: Returning to 1986 ...
For the past several years now we have undertaken sharing some of the area’s oral history we have collected over the years that we have written this column. Therefore, this year, we would like to go back to 1986 to share that rather unusual year. Those who were here then no doubt remember that it was that year that the village celebrated the bicentennial of its founding.
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From Fly Creek: For reasons unknowable
[Jim’s reached back to 2002 to share one of his favorite columns.] My father was born as the last century began into a river village in tidewater Maryland. He told me once of a man there in his boyhood who, like so many, made a thin living tonging for oysters in the cold months and, in the hot and humid ones, crabbing and raising vegetables.
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In These Otsego Hills: CCS balancing act ... side two
Last week we shared a number of activities in which students at CCS can participate. We thought it was an impressive, if not overwhelming, list. And we are indeed pleased that the young people of our area have these opportunities. However, we think it is also important to keep in mind that these undertakings do have a cost associated with them. They are not free. In fact there are, no doubt, those who would say they do not come cheap.
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From Fly Creek: A graceful crowd
Make of this what you will, friends. I feel I’m really meant to share it with you. Despite good medication for my Parkinsonism, every four or five weeks I can sensethe symptoms building up on me, giving me more than ordinary trouble. Lately it’s been falls, and last week brought a typical one. I’d gone out to get the paper, moving along with penguin steps on the snowcoved ice patches, and usingmy spike-tipped cane the waya climber uses an ice axe. But circumstances overcame me. Parkinson’s wipes out the possibility of multi-tasking.
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In These Otsego Hills: This and that and the other side ...
We note that the CCS Class of 2012 is presenting its senior class play, “Snow White” by Tim Kelly, this week with performances 7:30 p.m Thursday and Friday, March 29 and 30, and at 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 31. All performances will be at the Nicolas J. Sterling Auditorium at the Middle/High School.
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In These Otsego Hills: That green thing ...
Of late we have noticed that our email inbox has been much busier than usual. In fact, we find ourselves hard pressed to keep up with all the various messages we receive. As a result we suspect we have not answered some in as timely a fashion as might be thought appropriate.
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From Fly Creek: What you need to know
In their last Sunday’s bulletins, all 84 churches of Otsego County were to have carried announcements of an important meeting; most of them did. But because the announcement is so important, and not just to the churched, here it is again.
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Book Notes: Living the magic of ‘Hoosier’
A lot of people consider “Hoosiers” the best sports film of all time. The 1986 classic follows the exploits of a fictional small town Indiana high school basketball team in 1952 as it attempts to achieve the impossible dream of a state championship. The story is inspired by the true life achievement of the 1954 Milan team, who with an enrollment of only 161 students shocked big city power Muncie Central on a last second shot to win the state title. It’s the kind of sports story that represents something that is hard to grasp unless you live in a small town.
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In These Otsego Hills: The most perfect village... home to heavy industry?
We suspect we would get a whole lot more accomplished if we spent less time thinking, pondering and musing about things. In fact, there is a good possibility we might actually have completed our goal of cleaning the basement if we only focused on the task at hand, instead of trying to figure out the world around us. It almost makes us wonder if it is possible to think too much about things. We certainly hope not because should that be the case, we are in deep trouble.
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Up On Hawthorn Hill: The past in the present
Clichés abound about the value of photographs. Most are probably true at least to a certain extent. What I do know about an image is that it represents something of the past that is not the pastitself. But that is the power of any image. It represents something that once was. The beauty of an image, revisited, is that it functions as a catalystfor reliving in the present a past experience. My own view, one that I thank the Spanish writer Jorge Luis Borges for, is that all we ever can experience is the present.
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Home Notes: Workshops held for Thanksgiving Home residents
We welcomed Linda Keller, Ph.D. of the Bassett Research Institute and Ida Baker of NYCAMH who presented a six-week workshop for residents and staff.
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From Fly Creek: Late-winter hamlet news
Well, at least I’m “guessing” it’s late winter now — in the winter that wasn’t. But, if not snow, I can provide a flurry of Fly Creek news to share with you, scooping Associated Press, Reuter’s, and United Press International, not to mention all local news services except our General Store.
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In These Otsego Hills: Waiting for spring to have sprung ...
Difficult as it to believe, both January and February seem to have flown by and we find ourselves turning the calendar over to the month of March, which we have long thought is one of the more dreary months of the year. Of course, as in the pastthere are signs of spring as reflected by the tapping of the maple trees. For many years, the trees sprouted buckets to capture their all important sap. However, we now know to look for the sap collection lines that are strung from tree to tree.
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Book Notes: Kennedy: a unique individual
It’s been almost 50 years since the Kennedy assassination shocked the nation. Since then much has been written about President John F. Kennedy and whether he would have achieved his destiny (whatever that may have been) if he had lived. It is said he inspired young people in a way that has never been equaled. And there is the notion of Camelot, espoused by his widow Jackie, that there will never be a time of hope and promise like that again.
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From Fly Creek: Revving up for spring
