Fear is beginning to set in

Today was a big step in selling the house.  We had the big inspection and Radon tests which passed with flying colors. The closing date is 3 April and that's not far away. We are selling the house both of us have lived in for the longest time and moving to the motor home. I've made many moves during the time when I should have been the most stable,  the years my kids were growing up.  It seems to me we had moved something like 14 times during my oldest daughters school years.  It would be almost impossible to figure for each of the 3 now. Every move was like this one though for me. Filled with doubts and fears. I think now is even harder because of the added anxiety that pd brings to the table. Shelley is all set, full speed ahead. We will both miss the great friendships we've developed here, but we aren't getting any younger or healthier so I guess we gotta do this. We can't keep up with what this place needs and frankly we can't afford it any more. When we leave just in no house payment,  no utilities, no sat tv, stuff like that we come out about 1900.00 a month ahead. Plus working pt at the KOA's which includes cable and electricity we come out about 2500.00 per month. Free stays at KOA'S  when traveling to and from, hard not to do this.

But the fear of can I do the work and all. Some days it is almost impossible just to get out of bed. The fatigue is a big worry and I know for Shelley so is working with her hands. It all makes it a major adventure. Then when we are done next September we really will have no home to go to . we'll do some visiting and such. Look for a new campground, but the motor home will be home. I hope to write a book about this and the years leading to us being where we are, so many things and so many great people have brought us to this point

Getting away from winter and the cold will help us both feel better of that I have no doubt. When you're stiff and sore the cold only makes you stiffer and sorer so it's time to go. . Just stay with us here and Facebook, that way we can all stay close. Going to be a busy month, I'll write as often as I can 

So it begins for real

Funny when you really begin preparing for this thing you've talked and dreampt about. I struck me today as I was taking pictures of the wall for packing. We will have lived here in this house for 14 and a half years, longer than either one of us has lived continually in one house. The things we have collected over the years and the memories.

When we bought this house we made a decision to do so to be closer to family, we lived and worked in Denver Colorado at the time I flew out of Denver and Shelley was going to Veterinary tech school. We figured I would have to commute for a while until I could get based closer to home but it was our desire to get back here. Wisconsin is here by the way. but from the beginning it was iffy at best. A couple of months before we closed it looked like we may go on strike at work. That didn't happen but while we were on vacation 2 months before we moved in I received the news I was awarded a Captain position in Appleton just where we wanted to be. Then just under a year after moving in 9/11 hit. For a time flying was reduced, drastically reduced. After a while things got back to normal,  whatever that is, and after 5 years I was diagnosed with depression an early symptom of Parkinson's, but that had never crossed our minds. At that time however you could not fly and be treated for depression, that has since changed. My flying career was over. I drove over the road truckfor a few years, the worst job in the world, for me. Health issues continued to plague me, neck surgery in 2010 followed by 6 months of physical therapy with no improvement and finnally my diagnosis of Parkinson's disease.

Our retirement dream was to live and travel on a sailboat.  We've decided to call this land sailing. Then in 2013 Shelley had to have carpal tunnel surgery on both hands. It went bad and she ended up with permanent nerve damage in both hands a wrists.  The Dr's said she could not work again, not many jobs you can do with out your hands. So we traded my F-150 an atv and trailor and a camper trailor for the motor home. Last summer we did some traveling and visiting some of the greatest people we have ever know, then got a call to camp host at a national forest campground n loved it and all that brought us to pulling the pictures off the wall today. We should close on this house around the beginning of April at which time we move into the motor home . Us 1 cat and 3 dogs. Then it's off to Montana to work the summer at a campground. The good thing is the hours are very limited, the pay is minimum wage but free camping.

So this is how we come to here if we make enough on the house we can upgrade the to a nicer motor home, otherwise it's save over the summer and continue on from there. I would be a fool or lying if I said I didn't have some apprehension about all this, but in the same vein I am excited about the travel while we can. I am very lucky to have the partner in life I have. The things we have gone through the last 10 years could easily have torn us apart and I don't think anyone could have blamed us, but I believe we have gotten stronger in spite of everything. So now it's just get packed and get on with life. I'll keep writing here as long as I have something to say.

Just what is a Parkie in the Foresrt

Funny you should ask that. About 4 years ago I was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, many are familiar with it because of Michael J Foxn but there are so many more of us and basically we all have our own version of this degenerative disease. Parkinson's was disscribed to me once as many as 20+ different diseases rolled into one. The one really bad thing is it is an incurable degenerative brain disorder.  Everyone of us who has it willdie with it, maybe not because of it ñ but what will happen is as the inability of the brain to produce and use dopamine things will stop working. Most I guess will die from a form of pneumonia n caused by thr inability to swallow properly. Many think of it as an old persons disease and I guess at one time that may have been true. It is however showing up in people as young as 17. There is wide speculation as to why that is, but that is for another time.

I am here to explain what this "Parkie in the Forest" thing is. For 27 years I was an airline pilot and my wife was a flight attendant,  who later became a veterinary technician.  I was diagnosed with what will here to fore be called as pd "Parkinson's disease and I myself am a pwp or person with Parkinson's. It made as you might think a major change in my life. As time goes on I will explain what the changes were, are, and still happening. My wife a couple of years later had double carple tunnel surgery and ended up with severe nerve damage in her hands and wrists. Now contrary yo what you mighy think this is it is not a pitty party for us. We are moving foward with out lives doing as much as we can to take on a world we know something about. We are going into the Forest to work at what we can. This summer we will be working in a national campground chain and blogging about how 2 disabled people can function.  The company does not know yet who we are but at no time will we ever blame a short fall on our part on anyone but us. Our goal is to show how much we can stil contribute to society d's and support of ourselves in general. We have a great job set up for this summer and maybe next.

What I really want is for those of you who read our site to like it , share it, and comment on it. People who you may just walk by and ignore have a lot to give, all we need is a chance. I am not a real believer in the notion that God set this all up for me. I know that what I have done I pretty well did it to and for myself. My feeling is if God gave me pd to see how I would handle it then things like Super Novas and Galaxies coliding must be pretty be pretty boring. I'll shake and deteriorate for another 10 to 20 years these other thinhgs happen over millions of years.

All we want to do is deal with te day to day thingsn our struggle to help each other and all the other battles we win and lose along the was.
But again please stay with us comment and help get a real discussin going.

It's all coming together

We git the news to day Valentines Day that the people buying our house sold theirs. So now we have about 6 or7 weeks to prepare for this big adventure. We are pretty sure we will have all we need to up grade the motor home we are looking at. It is gong to be a challenge but we are going fot it full bore. This is going to be a major adventure.  Please stay with us as this grows. I have pd and my wife has CRPS in her hands and wrists. We each have a disability and we are going to take on this challenge together. We are going to talk about what we live with and what we can and can not do. Please stay with us.

How do you get away from pd for a while

Saturday we had a great speaker at our support group,  he was an early president of the Wisconsin Parkinson's Association.  Great guy has been his wifes caregiver for 40 yea4s since she was diagnosed. Many great points were made but he made a  special point of telling the caregivers to make sure the take care of themselves, to which I agree completely. He does now however have 9 people who take care of his wife for him or she would surely be in a nursing home now. If they travel he of course does not travel with her, someone else does that. This brought up a question in me how do we the pwp gwt away?  My wife suggested a get away for pwp so that we could talk of other things and do things to get away from our disease. Here is where I see a bit of a rub.

When you are around pwp it is readily apparent that you are with a group of people who have pd. Alarms gong off every little bit to tell us it's time for pills, not to mention everyone moves in slow motion or tremors. She then suggested that we be encouraged not to discuss our disease and speak of other things. My thought was well yes we could all do that while we can't sleep at night or sit there contemplating all the other things we used to be able to do. I know this sounds harsh but there is no place or no time that we can get away from this disease. It has gotten into my dreams, I am restricted in what I can do in my dreams by this. I agree that our loved ones who care for us no matter how simple now or how much later on need to get away from it, but they must realize that we can't do that. Parkinson's weaves its way into every bit of our being. We live by the schedule of pills it requires, by the way we move, by the way we think or don't think anymore,  even into that most cherished place of all where we were invincible..... our dreams.

I don't say any of this in anger or being mad at some deity that must have more important things to do than take time off from running a universe to worry about how I'm doing. It is very simply a matter of fact,  no matter what I do or where I go this is the dominant force in my life. It has robbed me of the ability to make Love, to swallow, to sleep, even to poop!!!!! I can no more blame a God for this than I can give him credit for the fact that I could do the things I did before. That would be saying everything in my life was set in stone before I was born and then why bother at all. What was all this for? I want to believe that the things I did were because I wanted to do them enough to put in the effort. I certainly don't know the ways of the universe but I would like to think that both the good and the bad I have done were things I did and not a part of some cosmic chess game or even worse some preordained plan conceived long before I was.