Hard to believe the year is almost over! It has been a busy couple of months but I hope to catch up soon and get back to a somewhat regular posting schedule. In the meantime, we hope everyone has a great holiday and we are looking forward to the new year and more progress in the search for a cure.
Happy Holidays!
Tom and Mara
Tuesday, December 1st is Giving Tuesday. Black Friday is over and Cyber Monday is almost over and Tuesday will be a great opportunity to take some (or all) of the money you saved this weekend and give back by making a donation to a Parkinson’s Disease organization or another cause of your choice. As in past years, many charitable organizations have a matching plan that will double your Giving Tuesday donation for double the benefit.
In case you need a little inspiration, I am reposting the following article “What is a Parkie? And Why are They so Expensive?“. This article was written by Alan Zimmerman vice president of the East Tennessee Parkinson’s Support Group and posted on their website, PK Hope is Alive . Alan is a strong and active advocate for Parkinson’s research and education. In addition to being Vice President of the group, he is the Assistant Tennessee State Director for the Parkinson’s Action Network (PAN) and a member of the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation (PDF) People with Parkinson’s Advisory Council.
Take some time on Tuesday and support the cause of your choice, There is a lot of exciting news on the research front and our donations can make a difference! Happy Holidays!!
Just a quick post wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving from Seattle. I have much to be thankful for this year including:
But most of all I am thankful for the support of my wonderful wife, my family, my friends and all of you who take the time to read my wandering posts. I hope I have provided information of value to PwP’s and others through this blog and the Tennessee Parkinson’s Resources site that we started this year.
Thank you all and Happy Thanksgiving!
We have had a busy late summer and fall and, unfortunately, I have not been a faithful blog poster. But now the holiday season is coming up, so I’m sure I can keep up with timely blog posts 🙂
To bring you up to date, in August, my brother in law Joe in Michigan failed the eye exam for his driver’s license renewal. It was determined that he had severe cataracts in both eyes and shouldn’t have been driving at all! So off we went to Michigan to get him back and forth to doctors appointments and two separate surgeries. During the break between the first eye surgery and the second, we made it out to Colorado to visit family and friends, a trip we originally had scheduled in August to coincide with grandson Charlie’s 16th birthday. We then went to Grand Rapids for the Rallying to the Challenge meeting (see my last post for details) before heading home.
In October, we journeyed to Asheville, NC and met up with the Marcia and Erwin whom we knew from Kripalu and her stepsister and husband, June and Phil. We had a great time touring the Biltmore House (America’s largest single family residence) and the River Art’s District and catching up since last March when we met up in Florida. Marcia and Erwin and another couple from Kripalu held an inaugural 5K race/walk in the Poconos in June and raised $26K for the Michael J Fox Foundation!
A week or so later we were off to San Diego to visit Ryan, Sarah and Julian. We got to see Julian play football, attended one of Sarah’s yoga classes, enjoyed several fine wines and meals and celebrated Ryan’s 40th birthday. The weather was perfect and we got in a lot of walking and caught some great sunsets over the ocean.
When we returned, I had my appointment with my Movement Disorder Specialist who was pleased with how things were going and recommended no changes to my medication regimen, in fact, he was willing to schedule the next appointment for a year away, but we decided we should continue the every 6 month’s cycle for now.
We made a short trip last weekend to Jackson, MS to watch grandson Garrett play soccer in his college league semi-final soccer tournament, held at Milsaps College. We were rained out the first night and the next day the team lost in the last 2 minutes of a well played game. It was our first (and last) time to see him play this year.
In our spare time, we have continued to build up the Tennessee Parkinson’s Disease Resources website which is now operational and we have printed cards with the website address which we are sending to support groups in Tennessee. Our hope is patients will take an extra card or two and give it to both their primary care Doctor and their neurologist so they are aware that the site exists. If it all works as we would like, the Doctor can order additional cards to have on hand for patients. The goal is to let newly diagnosed PwP know they are not alone and resources are available.
So that more or less brings us up to date and I promise I will try to meet my goal of at least two posts a month, even with the holiday’s coming up. In the meantime, don’t forget to sign up for Fox Trial Finder and Fox Insight, we have over 50,000 profiles in Trial Finder and over 3000 in Insight but we need more!! Click on the button at the top of the page or the Fox Insight icon to sign up. Thanks!
We have had a busy late summer and fall and, unfortunately, I have not been a faithful blog poster. But now the holiday season is coming up, so I’m sure I can keep up with timely blog posts 🙂
To bring you up to date, in August, my brother in law Joe in Michigan failed the eye exam for his driver’s license renewal. It was determined that he had severe cataracts in both eyes and shouldn’t have been driving at all! So off we went to Michigan to get him back and forth to doctors appointments and two separate surgeries. During the break between the first eye surgery and the second, we made it out to Colorado to visit family and friends, a trip we originally had scheduled in August to coincide with grandson Charlie’s 16th birthday. We then went to Grand Rapids for the Rallying to the Challenge meeting (see my last post for details) before heading home.
In October, we journeyed to Asheville, NC and met up with the Marcia and Erwin whom we knew from Kripalu and her stepsister and husband, June and Phil. We had a great time touring the Biltmore House (America’s largest single family residence) and the River Art’s District and catching up since last March when we met up in Florida. Marcia and Erwin and another couple from Kripalu held an inaugural 5K race/walk in the Poconos in June and raised $26K for the Michael J Fox Foundation!
A week or so later we were off to San Diego to visit Ryan, Sarah and Julian. We got to see Julian play football, attended one of Sarah’s yoga classes, enjoyed several fine wines and meals and celebrated Ryan’s 40th birthday. The weather was perfect and we got in a lot of walking and caught some great sunsets over the ocean.
When we returned, I had my appointment with my Movement Disorder Specialist who was pleased with how things were going and recommended no changes to my medication regimen, in fact, he was willing to schedule the next appointment for a year away, but we decided we should continue the every 6 month’s cycle for now.
We made a short trip last weekend to Jackson, MS to watch grandson Garrett play soccer in his college league semi-final soccer tournament, held at Milsaps College. We were rained out the first night and the next day the team lost in the last 2 minutes of a well played game. It was our first (and last) time to see him play this year.
In our spare time, we have continued to build up the Tennessee Parkinson’s Disease Resources website which is now operational and we have printed cards with the website address which we are sending to support groups in Tennessee. Our hope is patients will take an extra card or two and give it to both their primary care Doctor and their neurologist so they are aware that the site exists. If it all works as we would like, the Doctor can order additional cards to have on hand for patients. The goal is to let newly diagnosed PwP know they are not alone and resources are available.
So that more or less brings us up to date and I promise I will try to meet my goal of at least two posts a month, even with the holiday’s coming up. In the meantime, don’t forget to sign up for Fox Trial Finder and Fox Insight, we have over 50,000 profiles in Trial Finder and over 3000 in Insight but we need more!! Click on the button at the top of the page or the Fox Insight icon to sign up. Thanks!
We have had a busy late summer and fall and, unfortunately, I have not been a faithful blog poster. But now the holiday season is coming up, so I’m sure I can keep up with timely blog posts 🙂
To bring you up to date, in August, my brother in law Joe in Michigan failed the eye exam for his driver’s license renewal. It was determined that he had severe cataracts in both eyes and shouldn’t have been driving at all! So off we went to Michigan to get him back and forth to doctors appointments and two separate surgeries. During the break between the first eye surgery and the second, we made it out to Colorado to visit family and friends, a trip we originally had scheduled in August to coincide with grandson Charlie’s 16th birthday. We then went to Grand Rapids for the Rallying to the Challenge meeting (see my last post for details) before heading home.
In October, we journeyed to Asheville, NC and met up with the Marcia and Erwin whom we knew from Kripalu and her stepsister and husband, June and Phil. We had a great time touring the Biltmore House (America’s largest single family residence) and the River Art’s District and catching up since last March when we met up in Florida. Marcia and Erwin and another couple from Kripalu held an inaugural 5K race/walk in the Poconos in June and raised $26K for the Michael J Fox Foundation!
A week or so later we were off to San Diego to visit Ryan, Sarah and Julian. We got to see Julian play football, attended one of Sarah’s yoga classes, enjoyed several fine wines and meals and celebrated Ryan’s 40th birthday. The weather was perfect and we got in a lot of walking and caught some great sunsets over the ocean.
When we returned, I had my appointment with my Movement Disorder Specialist who was pleased with how things were going and recommended no changes to my medication regimen, in fact, he was willing to schedule the next appointment for a year away, but we decided we should continue the every 6 month’s cycle for now.
We made a short trip last weekend to Jackson, MS to watch grandson Garrett play soccer in his college league semi-final soccer tournament, held at Milsaps College. We were rained out the first night and the next day the team lost in the last 2 minutes of a well played game. It was our first (and last) time to see him play this year.
In our spare time, we have continued to build up the Tennessee Parkinson’s Disease Resources website which is now operational and we have printed cards with the website address which we are sending to support groups in Tennessee. Our hope is patients will take an extra card or two and give it to both their primary care Doctor and their neurologist so they are aware that the site exists. If it all works as we would like, the Doctor can order additional cards to have on hand for patients. The goal is to let newly diagnosed PwP know they are not alone and resources are available.
So that more or less brings us up to date and I promise I will try to meet my goal of at least two posts a month, even with the holiday’s coming up. In the meantime, don’t forget to sign up for Fox Trial Finder and Fox Insight, we have over 50,000 profiles in Trial Finder and over 3000 in Insight but we need more!! Click on the button at the top of the page or the Fox Insight icon to sign up. Thanks!