My story…

So the National Parkinson’s Foundation sent me an email asking me to tell my PD story.  I’m not special, they want all their members to do this.  It did get me thinking though.  First, not all that many PD patients are third generation patients.  Second, the percentage of PD patients my age is tiny, most people are diagnosed in their 60’s and 70’s, even early onset patients are mostly in their 40’s and early 50’s.  Third, I  my mother lives with me and my husband so in some capacity, I am both a patient and a caregiver.  Poor Chris, he is constantly on call for anything mom and me can’t do, open jars, put up curtains or pictures, move furniture…

I don’t know if I even have a story.  Not one that every other PD patient hasn’t heard before.  My hand shakes and drops things, I feel like my right leg is being controlled by someone else sometimes and all I do is fight with it, some days I feel like I take medication all day long, sometimes my medication doesn’t work very much at all.

If I had a story about having PD it would be more about tripping over cats, and careening through a hotel lobby like a mad woman the first time I experienced propelling, or laughing over my mom falling out the back door only because she wasn’t hurt because she fell on her dinner she had just bought (mashed potatoes everywhere).  We stay pretty positive, no drama, no period of disbelief, no self-pity.  We just are who we are at my house.

Why?

Why are people in such a hurry to get to work every morning?

Why is it okay to wear something ugly if it’s “in style” (example, those hideous Ugg boots) but not okay to wear something ugly if it’s not?

Why did the music industry kill country music and turn it into generic pop twang?

Why won’t the laundry fairies come to my house at night?

Why can’t magic be real?  I have a growing list of people I want turned into toads or worse.

Why do people always feel the need to make fun of me for being a Cubs fan?  Isn’t being a fan about more than just winning?  What about loyalty?  If it were easy to root for a team all of the time you wouldn’t really be a fan.

Why is liberal a bad word but conservative isn’t?  I’m proud of my liberal-ness.

Why don’t parents send there kids outside to play anymore?  When I was a kid were weren’t allowed to play inside during the summer.

Why do my co-workers insist upon sending me religious emails when they all know that I am unashamedly not religious?

Why do people believe in angels and not ghosts?

Why is it so strange that I’d rather watch baseball than soap operas?

Why can’t Oz be a real place?

Why can’t we have more holidays that require us to dress up in costumes?

Why do people just assumed that if you are married you want to have kids?

Why is it so much easier to gain weight than to lose it?

Why can’t I just be beamed home instead of fighting traffic every afternoon?

Why does the dryer only eat one sock?  Does the dryer monster only have one foot or does it prefer to wear mismatched socks?

Why am I the only one who find it odd that my sister wears Christmas socks all year?

Why can’t I be a super hero?

Why can’t there be a “magic pill”?

Why can’t we all just get along?

Why are none of these answers on Wikkipedia?

Yesterday

As some of you know, I work in an outpatient clinic at a local hospital.  We get used to seeing the unusual happen around here.  Once, a prisoner from the state prison system said he needed to use the bathroom and while his guards waited outside he climbed up on the sink, removed a ceiling tile, and escaped.  We were all locked in the building until the police located him about an hour later.  

We see temper tantrums, heart attacks, insanity, and general chaos every day.  It’s just a part of working with sick people.  You adjust to it, it all becomes routine after a few years of working with it.

Yesterday, we had an incident that shook up even the most veteran staff.  A patient sitting in one of the exam rooms shot himself in the back of the head.  In the middle of a busy clinic, this patient decides to kill himself.  Chaos doesn’t ever begin to describe the rest of the afternoon.

I guess maybe the patient lived alone and was afraid that no one would find their body.  Or maybe they figured that if something went wrong there would be doctors and nurses around.  I don’t know.

The scary thing is that someone made it into the clinic with a loaded gun and no one knew.  This person was just suicidal but what if the next person is suicidal and angry too?

The thing is, you can’t go to work everyday, or to McDonald’s or the mall or out of your house in general worrying that there might be someone with a gun intending to shoot themselves or anyone else.  You can’t live in fear so you have to set the incident behind you and act as if it was a random act that won’t happen again.

I will say this.  I am no fan of guns.  I think they should all be banned.  Period.  No exceptions for hunting, no exceptions for collectors, no exceptions for rednecks or idiots.

iphones and orange jello

I have never been what anyone would call cool or trendy.  I have a hard time keeping up with what’s popular, partly because I have no patience for it and partly because I just don’t care.  So last year when my husband bought an iphone I just didn’t expect to be particularly impressed.  I was wrong.

Very few times have I ever really lusted after anything.  I wanted an iphone bad and when my ipod died (ipod sad face is the worst sight in modern technology) I wanted one even more.  The iphone is all of my favorite things in one sleek package.  It’s a music player, there is an app that allows you to follow all the MLB games and even listen to streaming radio broadcasts, and it’s also a phone (which comes in handy on the rare event that I actually answer it).  

Well today, my very own iphone should be delivered to my home.  I am geeked!  It’s better than Christmas!  

Also, I would like to take this opportunity to express my love for sugar-free orange jello.  I mix diet 7up in to give it a little zip and top it with a little fat-free whipped cream.  And to my strange sister who does not like jello, well that’s just another reason why Katie is my favorite sister.

The highs and lows of being a Cubs fan

0-6 road trip where the Cubs apparently forgot to bring bats along since they struggled to score even a single run most games.  Then, they return to Wrigley on Monday and go on a scoring run but are somehow completely unable to keep the Pirates from scoring.  Sad.

I know that it’s early in the season.  I know that the Cubs have had terrible luck with injuries so far.  I know that every team during the course of the season goes through a slump or two.  None of that has made me feel much better.  

Tonight, I want a win.  This year I want a World Series.  I know, it’s terrible and demanding but even the Blackhawks won a playoff series and two years ago they were the laughingstock of the NHL.  

1000

I have had 999 hits on my blog site.  Now I am fully aware that other bloggers get 1000 hit a day, but for my little rambling blog it’s sort of a milestone.  So I’d like to thank you all, whomever you are, for visiting.

Subjects I never thought I would blog about…

So American Idol is taking over my town tonight.  

Kris Allen is a student at UCA and his parents live twenty minutes away.  Apparently, when an “Idol” contestant makes it to the final three the show comes to their hometown to film a concert so last week we had 20,000 people lining the streets downtown for a parade and concert.  

Tonight they are back!  The cameras are back to film crowd reaction for the announcement of the winner.  There are thousands of people wearing Kris Allen tee-shirts and roaming groups of pre-teen girls bursting into tears whenever they hear his name.  It’s like Beatles-mania only much, much more pathetic.

So if he wins, I’m assuming the whole town is going to turn into a nightmare carnival of pre-adolesent girls and soccer moms.

Criticism Kills

I postulated this thought last night:  

“Are we more critical about a new album released by a favorite band than we are about a album by a completely new band?”

 

I think the answser is undeniably “yes”.  

 

A new band catches our attention with a single song and we think, “Well, I like that song so why not try the entire album?”  No preconceived notions, no built in wish list for what we like or dislike of albums past just a pure new listening experience.  

When a band like Wilco puts out a new album we are already expecting certian things before we listen to even one song.  Not that we want every album to be “A Ghost Is Born” or every song to be “Heavy Metal Drummer” but we want a taste of those mixed in with something new.  So the more fans a band has collected along the way the more varied expectations there are going to be.  Simply put, somebody is always going to be disappointed.  

“Wilco: The Album” is already creating the usual debate over whether it’s better than the previous album and where it falls in the order of favorites.  Of course that is a highly personal list, changing from person to person.  Me, I’ll always have a special place in my heart for “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” as it was the first Wilco album I ever heard but “Summerteeth” is my favorite.  I loved “Sky Blue Sky” but my husband and sister put it near the bottom on their lists.  

So, before rampant internet panic ensues over how good, bad, or whatever “Wilco: The Album” is, everyone take a breath, listen to it a few more times…it’s Wilco, it will end up being better than 99% of the albums released this year even if it is not your favorite Wilco album ever.

For those who might be concerned…

Regarding the previous post about having a copy of the leaked Wilco album:

My husband and to a slightly lesser extent me are huge music fans who deeply appreciate the many if not most of the bands we love are not exactly rolling in money.  Even if we get an album early we always buy a copy when it is released and usually more than one as my husband have a love affair with vinyl that only he can understand.  We purchase merchandise at shows and at times (re: Glossary and the van transmission) have donated money to help a band we love be able to travel.

I’m not saying that I support the big music execs in their constant whining about file sharing, most of the bands we love put content online themselves, hell Wilco did it with YHF and A Ghost Is Born.  Music is best when shared and the internet and word of mouth has done more for indie bands than any record label exec.  I’m just saying that we support or bands and so should you.  Buy the CD, buy a tee-shirt at the next show you go to, good music must be supported even if that’s with crappy blog posts about a leaked album.

Pondering the new Wilco…

First, I have only listened once while ironing and watching the Cubs play San Diego.  Second, I am notoriously slow to absorb new music.  That being said, I had a hard time getting into the new album when my husband got it around seven last night.  

I think I was wanting more rock and roll.  I’m not one of those people who want a new “YHF” or “Summerteeth” revisited.  I like that Tweedy is constantly reinventing himself and the general sound of the band.  However, the song with Feist sounds suspiciously like easy listening and several others walk a fine line between just being new and being boring.  Boring is a word I’ve never associated with Wilco.

I need to put it on my ipod, devote some time just to sit and listen a few time through.  I’ll give a real reveiw then.