Rock Steady Fighter

The Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone.  I started it in the kitchen fairly early in the day.  My first thought was, "How come everyone in the house is sleeping and I am chopping vegetables?"  Quickly, my second thought became, "I am so fortunate that I can chop vegetables."   This season has brought a host of tragedy with it.  In California, there are many who have recently lost family members and  homes in the  wildfires  and there are many families that lost loved ones in the recent  Thousand Oaks shooting .  I am blessed that I have a kitchen and  that my home  will be filled with family and friends this season. After contemplating my many, many blessings, I decided that my upcoming Christmas season will be filled with giving and not getting.  When I look back over the years, we certainly gave to charities but I never made it a focus  in our home.  I didn't get my kids involved in it like I wish I had. ...

I spend lots of time reading about Parkinson's treatments.  After all, my quality of life depends on it. It's like looking through a rain streaked window.   Everything is blurry, but once in a while, you catch a glimpse of something clear and you get hopeful that the sun will break through and make everything clear.  Then more rain falls, and that glimpse disappears and we wait for another peak of clarity and get our hopes up again.   In my head, I hold on to the clear pieces that I have seen and try to fit them all together.  In my head, the researchers have squeegees and are trying to fend off the downpour of toxins, bad genes, head injuries and  whatever else they think might be causing PD. (Aren't you glad you don't live in my head?  It can get pretty weird in there!) As the population ages,  more and more people are being diagnosed with PD and the storm is growing. We need bigger squeegees or more window washers and they both require more mon...