Rick M.
I'm reluctant to present myself as a Parkinson's patient since I don't think of myself that way, don't want to start, and don't believe my symptoms have “impacted my life” to any significant degree. Maybe "refuse to think of myself that way" is more accurate -- I'm a big believer in the power of denial!
I go through phases in my life where I'm totally obsessed with recording and writing songs or writing a musical and then I go full circle and go back to being obsessed with philosophy and teaching and reading, thinking, writing. That’s the phase I'm in right now.
I find that I've stopped doing music for the last three or four years, since I finished a musical. I started to miss the intellectual side of my life. Also I can't really use my right hand effectively to play the piano.
Ellen certainly has dealt with it well. She is very encouraging. She’s thrilled that I'm back teaching at the university, kind of getting back to one’s first love and doing it late in life. Parkinson’s or no Parkinson’s, she finds that inspiring and a happy turn of events. Factoring in the Parkinson’s, I think she thinks I'm doing very well.
My doctor said “if I had Parkinson’s, I’d exercise three to four hours a day." I've always hated exercise. He calls me an outlier because he claims that the only people he has seen with such a slow progression are people who devote hours and hours a day to exercising and staving off these physical symptoms.
To me the most important thing is just saying, “I'm living my life. I'm interested in my life. I'm engaged in doing something that does some small good in the world and gets me involved with other people and gets me up and performing.” I try to live like someone who does not have Parkinson’s, and when the symptoms creep in for an hour or two a day, or I have a day when I feel like I'm shuffling around a bit and can't quite get my gait in gear, I just try to sort of blow through it; it passes.
I go through phases in my life where I'm totally obsessed with recording and writing songs or writing a musical and then I go full circle and go back to being obsessed with philosophy and teaching and reading, thinking, writing. That’s the phase I'm in right now.
I find that I've stopped doing music for the last three or four years, since I finished a musical. I started to miss the intellectual side of my life. Also I can't really use my right hand effectively to play the piano.
Ellen certainly has dealt with it well. She is very encouraging. She’s thrilled that I'm back teaching at the university, kind of getting back to one’s first love and doing it late in life. Parkinson’s or no Parkinson’s, she finds that inspiring and a happy turn of events. Factoring in the Parkinson’s, I think she thinks I'm doing very well.
My doctor said “if I had Parkinson’s, I’d exercise three to four hours a day." I've always hated exercise. He calls me an outlier because he claims that the only people he has seen with such a slow progression are people who devote hours and hours a day to exercising and staving off these physical symptoms.
To me the most important thing is just saying, “I'm living my life. I'm interested in my life. I'm engaged in doing something that does some small good in the world and gets me involved with other people and gets me up and performing.” I try to live like someone who does not have Parkinson’s, and when the symptoms creep in for an hour or two a day, or I have a day when I feel like I'm shuffling around a bit and can't quite get my gait in gear, I just try to sort of blow through it; it passes.