• Oracle TEAM USA Wins the America’s Cup!

    In one of the greatest comebacks in sports history, Oracle Team USA won eight straight races to win the 34th America’s Cup 9 races to 8 after being down 8-1 to Emirates Team New Zealand. Watching them race over the last three weeks you realize what team work it takes to sail a 72 foot catamaran with a 150 foot ‘wing’ sail at speeds over 40 miles an hour on San Francisco Bay.  In fact, at the end of the winning race today, the Team USA helmsman Jimmy Spithill tweeted a comment from his interview after the win  “On your own you’re nothing but when you’ve got a team like this around you, they make you great”.

    I feel the same way about dealing with Parkinson’s, you need a team to make you great.  The team includes your Movement Disorder Specialist, your regular doctor and should probably include a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, a speech therapist and maybe a nutrition specialist. As you can see, it takes a village to deal with the many symptoms and issues with Parkinson’s disease, just like raising a child.

    But as important as your medical team is, the support of my wife, my children and their spouses, my grandchildren, my sisters and a multitude of relatives and friends is just as needed.   I am lucky to have their support, words of encouragement and positive thoughts. As Jimmy Spithill said, I would be nothing without the support of my ‘TEAM’. Thank you all for all you do to help me weather this journey.

    I’ve had about a week on the new dose of medication three times a day and continue to see good improvement in walking and balance.

    This weekend our friends Tom and Marilyn visited from Colorado and we had a great time on the lake cruising, swimming, and catching this shot of the harvest moon rise on the water.  A grand time was had by all.

    One last reminder, don’t forget the Michael J Fox show premieres this Thursday 9/26/2013.

     

  • Parkinson’s Is Not Just Tremors

    “Time and again people with Parkinson’s have to fight against the old stereotype that the condition is just a tremor.” 
     
    “This basic misunderstanding has sentenced people with Parkinson’s to a life of hurtful comments, being refused service in shops and even being shouted at in the street, all because people have mistaken their speech or movement problems – a common symptom of the condition – for drunkenness.”
    Steve Ford, chief executive at Parkinson’s UK
     

     

    I heard these quotes during an interview on BBC Radio the other night and then looked it up on their website. The story is accompanied by a video interview which can be read and seen here.  They recount a study conducted in the UK showing that PWP suffer discrimination because of symptoms other than tremors including the slow gait and balance issues that sometimes make me look like I’ve had one too many before 10 am.  I’ve noticed people looking at me like I might be drunk as we walk into the grocery store and it appears from this study that even if I wore a shirt that said ‘I have Parkinson’s’ they still might think I was inebriated.

    Thanks to the National Parkinson’s Foundation, I carry a card that helps to explain the symptoms and covers various drug interactions in case I need emergency care.

     
     
    The non-tremor symptoms such as slurred speech, facial mask (unable to show expressions), freezing in place, and tipsy gait among others are the little known part of this disease for the general public.  I did not realize how complex this disease can be until I starting researching after my diagnosis but I certainly have a greater understanding now.  I hope that readers of this blog do too.
     

     

    I had a follow up visit with the neurologist last week and he decided to double the medication dosage from .125 to .25 so I have started the increase with my midday dose and then will add the morning and night doses over the next week or two.  The one thing we have already noticed is my soft voice gets stronger after the .25 dose and the balance problems decrease so I am hopeful that .25 three times a day will result in reduced motor symptoms too.  I also received a prescription for physical therapy which we hope will help with the gait issues among others.
     
    I’ve also started a spreadsheet to track symptoms after reading a blogpost by another PWP on the Michael J Fox blog.  I think it is an excellent idea and should be very helpful when meeting with the doctor.  And speaking of Michael J Fox don’t forget his show premiers September 26th.

  • I’m Alright, Just Slow!

    I find myself uttering this remark far too often already 🙂  Unfortunately it was the first of my noticeable symptoms and the one that is still present, even with the improvements from the medication.  While my normal walk in the county park next door has gone from 42 minutes down to 37 minutes since I started the medication, I still have my slow times during the day.  I guess even the walk is still slow, used to be able to complete in 34 minutes a year ago.

    There are many research studies that show exercise helps to slow the progression of PD symptoms so I have been exploring some options in addition to my daily walk.  I have found that the local Tai Chi group has weekly Health Recovery sessions so we plan to give that a try in the next week or so. The instructor said the Health Recovery class is for students who want to address particular health issues with Tai Chi, and also for those who are not able to take the regular beginning class.  The class focuses on a number of exercises rather than on learning the Tai Chi set.  She also indicated that many PWP are able to take the beginning class depending on the severity of their symptoms.  So we’ll start with the Health Recovery class to see how my balance issues effect the training and go from there.  Will give you an update in a future post.

    We also discovered that the National Parkinson Foundation sponsors a retreat every October for newly diagnosed PWP (less than 5 years) and we were able to get into this years offering at the Kripalu Retreat in Stockbridge, MA.  The retreat is the third week of October and covers many topics including yoga, nutrition, medication, exercise, etc.   The retreat is designed for both the PWP and their caregiver so we are excited we are able to attend.

    It’s been a busy couple of weeks since my last post, Mara had her second successful cataract surgery, we celebrated grandson Jacob’s 9th birthday and enjoyed a brief trip to Pickwick Landing state park in the southwest corner of Tennessee to meet up with good friends from Colorado who were attending a family reunion.  And of course we enjoyed many sunsets from the screen porch and a relaxing boat ride on the lake.  I may be slower but Life is good!

    PS Don’t forget the Michael J Fox show, premiering September 26th!!

IT IS WHAT IT IS!

At the Beach — Again!

 

I am writing this from the deck of a beautiful home overlooking the Atlantic Ocean on Bald Head Island, NC.  Yep, at the beach again!!  More about how we got here later in this post.

I have looked at several more clinical trials but again find that I don’t qualify because I am already on medication.  It seems to me that communication between Movement Disorder Specialists (MDS) or Neurologists and clinical trial operators could increase trial participants.  If the Doctors were aware of the trials being conducted nearby, they could then offer their newly diagnosed patients the opportunity to particpate in the trial before they prescribed a medications.  Of course another issue is travel, most of the trials that I have tried to join are at least 200 miles away and the travel costs are usually not covered.  In her latest blog post, Soania Mathur MD states “…close to 85% of all clinical trials are delayed due to recruitment difficulties and a shocking 30% fail to recruit a single subject.”  The post goes on to discuss both the logistical and the lack of knowledge issues I have discussed above.  The Michael J Fox Trial Finder website does a great job of listing all of the trials in my home radius of 300 miles and they notify me if a new one is added that meets the criteria but the newly diagnosed need to know where to look.  Perhaps one or more of the National organizations can develop a simple brochure that can be supplied to MDS and Neurologists for them to hand out or make available to patients.  It might be a start?

I was asked this week to be a PatientsLikeMe Research Ambassador.  PatientsLikeMe is an online support group I belong to and I had applied to be a member of a research advisory committee they were forming.  While I wasn’t selected for the advisory group I was asked to be a Research Ambassador. Per the email ..”Like the Team of Advisors, our Research Ambassadors are being asked to commit to a program that’s designed to put you in the driver’s seat of making research better.”  As an Ambassador, I will get special communications each month for the rest of the year about new research initiatives, information about data being collected and how it will be used, and use my blog and other social avenues to share this information with the Parkinson’s community.  I have participated in a couple of their research projects already, including the one where I did the voice test over the phone to see if they can track the progress of my Parkinson’s. Sounds interesting and I am looking forward to participating.

 

We had a great visit with my daughter Holly and grandchildren Charlie and Kayla.  The weather was great until the last evening so we got in a lot of boating, tubing, swimming, fishing and stand up paddle boarding along with side trips to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum and a couple of rounds of mini golf.

Kayla turned out to be the fisherperson extraordinaire hooking a couple of nice catfish and a bunch of sunfish from the dock.  Charlie loved being on the water and riding the tube. Holly and Kayla both enjoyed stand up paddle boarding so much the first time, they went back for more before leaving for home.  It was a great visit and a good time was had by all.

We are enjoying our time at the beach in Bald Head Island.  The island is reachable by ferry from Southport, NC and once you are here, you travel by foot, bike or golf cart.  We have been lucky to spend a week here for the past several summers with my stepson David and his wife Shelly and the two grand kids Breanna and Garrett.  This year Breanna is in MN so this is the first time we have been here without her.  Garrett always brings along a friend or two, this year he brought along 4 high school buddies and they are having a blast.  Dave and Shelly’s friends Mario and Missy have also joined us for the week.  It is a great place to just relax, read books, take long walks on the beach and watch the World Cup.  I am trying to catch up with all of the magazines I haven’t read since we returned from Florida in early March and produce this blog post.  Looks like the blog post will make it, we’ll see about the magazines.

Our friends Mary Ann and Don live nearby in Wilmington, NC so they came over for a day and we had a great time, we hadn’t seen them for almost 2 years so we had a lot of catching up to do.  We enjoyed a nice lunch with them and a couple of ‘slow’ rides around the island as one of our golf carts is not super speedy. 🙂

Next up is a visit from my son Ryan and his wife Sarah and grandson Julian and his half brother Trysten for the Fourth of July, look for more fun on the lake in the next post.

Other Posts

IT IS WHAT IT IS!

At the Beach — Again!

 

I am writing this from the deck of a beautiful home overlooking the Atlantic Ocean on Bald Head Island, NC.  Yep, at the beach again!!  More about how we got here later in this post.

I have looked at several more clinical trials but again find that I don’t qualify because I am already on medication.  It seems to me that communication between Movement Disorder Specialists (MDS) or Neurologists and clinical trial operators could increase trial participants.  If the Doctors were aware of the trials being conducted nearby, they could then offer their newly diagnosed patients the opportunity to particpate in the trial before they prescribed a medications.  Of course another issue is travel, most of the trials that I have tried to join are at least 200 miles away and the travel costs are usually not covered.  In her latest blog post, Soania Mathur MD states “…close to 85% of all clinical trials are delayed due to recruitment difficulties and a shocking 30% fail to recruit a single subject.”  The post goes on to discuss both the logistical and the lack of knowledge issues I have discussed above.  The Michael J Fox Trial Finder website does a great job of listing all of the trials in my home radius of 300 miles and they notify me if a new one is added that meets the criteria but the newly diagnosed need to know where to look.  Perhaps one or more of the National organizations can develop a simple brochure that can be supplied to MDS and Neurologists for them to hand out or make available to patients.  It might be a start?

I was asked this week to be a PatientsLikeMe Research Ambassador.  PatientsLikeMe is an online support group I belong to and I had applied to be a member of a research advisory committee they were forming.  While I wasn’t selected for the advisory group I was asked to be a Research Ambassador. Per the email ..”Like the Team of Advisors, our Research Ambassadors are being asked to commit to a program that’s designed to put you in the driver’s seat of making research better.”  As an Ambassador, I will get special communications each month for the rest of the year about new research initiatives, information about data being collected and how it will be used, and use my blog and other social avenues to share this information with the Parkinson’s community.  I have participated in a couple of their research projects already, including the one where I did the voice test over the phone to see if they can track the progress of my Parkinson’s. Sounds interesting and I am looking forward to participating.

 

We had a great visit with my daughter Holly and grandchildren Charlie and Kayla.  The weather was great until the last evening so we got in a lot of boating, tubing, swimming, fishing and stand up paddle boarding along with side trips to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum and a couple of rounds of mini golf.

Kayla turned out to be the fisherperson extraordinaire hooking a couple of nice catfish and a bunch of sunfish from the dock.  Charlie loved being on the water and riding the tube. Holly and Kayla both enjoyed stand up paddle boarding so much the first time, they went back for more before leaving for home.  It was a great visit and a good time was had by all.

We are enjoying our time at the beach in Bald Head Island.  The island is reachable by ferry from Southport, NC and once you are here, you travel by foot, bike or golf cart.  We have been lucky to spend a week here for the past several summers with my stepson David and his wife Shelly and the two grand kids Breanna and Garrett.  This year Breanna is in MN so this is the first time we have been here without her.  Garrett always brings along a friend or two, this year he brought along 4 high school buddies and they are having a blast.  Dave and Shelly’s friends Mario and Missy have also joined us for the week.  It is a great place to just relax, read books, take long walks on the beach and watch the World Cup.  I am trying to catch up with all of the magazines I haven’t read since we returned from Florida in early March and produce this blog post.  Looks like the blog post will make it, we’ll see about the magazines.

Our friends Mary Ann and Don live nearby in Wilmington, NC so they came over for a day and we had a great time, we hadn’t seen them for almost 2 years so we had a lot of catching up to do.  We enjoyed a nice lunch with them and a couple of ‘slow’ rides around the island as one of our golf carts is not super speedy. 🙂

Next up is a visit from my son Ryan and his wife Sarah and grandson Julian and his half brother Trysten for the Fourth of July, look for more fun on the lake in the next post.

Other Posts

At the Beach — Again!

Written by

Tom Eckhardt

in

 

I am writing this from the deck of a beautiful home overlooking the Atlantic Ocean on Bald Head Island, NC.  Yep, at the beach again!!  More about how we got here later in this post.

I have looked at several more clinical trials but again find that I don’t qualify because I am already on medication.  It seems to me that communication between Movement Disorder Specialists (MDS) or Neurologists and clinical trial operators could increase trial participants.  If the Doctors were aware of the trials being conducted nearby, they could then offer their newly diagnosed patients the opportunity to particpate in the trial before they prescribed a medications.  Of course another issue is travel, most of the trials that I have tried to join are at least 200 miles away and the travel costs are usually not covered.  In her latest blog post, Soania Mathur MD states “…close to 85% of all clinical trials are delayed due to recruitment difficulties and a shocking 30% fail to recruit a single subject.”  The post goes on to discuss both the logistical and the lack of knowledge issues I have discussed above.  The Michael J Fox Trial Finder website does a great job of listing all of the trials in my home radius of 300 miles and they notify me if a new one is added that meets the criteria but the newly diagnosed need to know where to look.  Perhaps one or more of the National organizations can develop a simple brochure that can be supplied to MDS and Neurologists for them to hand out or make available to patients.  It might be a start?

I was asked this week to be a PatientsLikeMe Research Ambassador.  PatientsLikeMe is an online support group I belong to and I had applied to be a member of a research advisory committee they were forming.  While I wasn’t selected for the advisory group I was asked to be a Research Ambassador. Per the email ..”Like the Team of Advisors, our Research Ambassadors are being asked to commit to a program that’s designed to put you in the driver’s seat of making research better.”  As an Ambassador, I will get special communications each month for the rest of the year about new research initiatives, information about data being collected and how it will be used, and use my blog and other social avenues to share this information with the Parkinson’s community.  I have participated in a couple of their research projects already, including the one where I did the voice test over the phone to see if they can track the progress of my Parkinson’s. Sounds interesting and I am looking forward to participating.

 

We had a great visit with my daughter Holly and grandchildren Charlie and Kayla.  The weather was great until the last evening so we got in a lot of boating, tubing, swimming, fishing and stand up paddle boarding along with side trips to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum and a couple of rounds of mini golf.

Kayla turned out to be the fisherperson extraordinaire hooking a couple of nice catfish and a bunch of sunfish from the dock.  Charlie loved being on the water and riding the tube. Holly and Kayla both enjoyed stand up paddle boarding so much the first time, they went back for more before leaving for home.  It was a great visit and a good time was had by all.

We are enjoying our time at the beach in Bald Head Island.  The island is reachable by ferry from Southport, NC and once you are here, you travel by foot, bike or golf cart.  We have been lucky to spend a week here for the past several summers with my stepson David and his wife Shelly and the two grand kids Breanna and Garrett.  This year Breanna is in MN so this is the first time we have been here without her.  Garrett always brings along a friend or two, this year he brought along 4 high school buddies and they are having a blast.  Dave and Shelly’s friends Mario and Missy have also joined us for the week.  It is a great place to just relax, read books, take long walks on the beach and watch the World Cup.  I am trying to catch up with all of the magazines I haven’t read since we returned from Florida in early March and produce this blog post.  Looks like the blog post will make it, we’ll see about the magazines.

Our friends Mary Ann and Don live nearby in Wilmington, NC so they came over for a day and we had a great time, we hadn’t seen them for almost 2 years so we had a lot of catching up to do.  We enjoyed a nice lunch with them and a couple of ‘slow’ rides around the island as one of our golf carts is not super speedy. 🙂

Next up is a visit from my son Ryan and his wife Sarah and grandson Julian and his half brother Trysten for the Fourth of July, look for more fun on the lake in the next post.

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