Self-Imposed Activity
It is my day to write. I try to write after lunch and a nap on Mondays and Tuesdays. I need the nap, especially after boxing exercises for Parkinson’s Disease (PD), but sometimes I am still worn out and it’s hard not to just “waste” the afternoon. I don’t have many appointments and occasionally I write through suppertime. Today, I false-started on two pieces. They may circle around and come back to me in a better light, but they didn’t make “the cut” on the first pass. I erased them both after 100 words. I wanted to just say “blah” and walk away but I stayed at my desk and continued in front of the white screen. This is a self-imposed activity for Monday and Tuesday with PD.
Sometimes I read other people’s blog sites when I’m trying to write. I try to read the blog of a history professor in Boston and a prepper in Austin daily, but I don’t always keep up. I look at the internet news to hold me here at the computer even though I count this as creative time. Is that cheating?
Dopamine
I tell myself that writing is good for my PD as it demands a continuous flow of dopamine and other good chemicals to make my cognitive side work harder. The time I spend writing helps keep away the “dark mind” side of PD, and the mental loss we all get some degree of as we age. What is normal aging and what is PD in terms of recent memory loss? I am not sure, but it is worse since I was fifty, whatever it is.
I don’t want it to get worse.
Boxing gives me physical exercise and writing is cognitive exercise and speech exercises are for muscles of facial expression and speech and all of the above. I guess it doesn’t matter what comes out on paper and whether or not it makes a good story, but a good story versus “just writing” is for me what is therapeutic. I don’t just write to put words on paper. The story has to actually tell some story. That’s really the therapy. It has to make a point to pass on. Or it needs to transmit a tad of history or put a repeater or a connector into the paragraphs to make whatever are the far ends of the story “connect.” Then it becomes therapeutic. Issues like grammar and punctuation call for discipline in review and attention to task, both of which I need more of when I write. Only then does my writing loosen my stiffness, lubricate my smile, and make me get up and dance.
Reflecting
Then I sleep on all of it.
My father-in-law was an artist all his life. He sold paintings and drawings as a fine artist in Houston. He worked mostly in acrylic, and he also taught at Rice University. I would ask him if a canvas was finished and he would tell me, “I think so, but I need to look at it for several days to know if it is really finished.” My efforts at trying to write creatively are like that. I need to read the piece again in the morning, and I never should put out anything on Friday afternoon. I know it will need additions when I try to “finish” a piece by a non-existent deadline. It works out much better to just let it flow. At least, that’s what I think.
Parkinson’s
What role does Parkinson’s play in this? I need hand-eye coordination with at least one hand for keyboarding, and I need technology sense for the computer because my handwriting is unreadable now. I could get a voice-activated trans scripter, but that feels like going around the therapy part, like ducking pushups at exercise class. Did I say I was never taught to type? Yes, that is another challenge. I’m a two-finger guy with my left hand! I hate the double tap that comes with using my more affected right hand. Parkinson’s has yet to block my ability to connect words and thoughts and metaphors, but that day may come. Until then, I will use creative writing to flex my cognitive muscles and to stay at it, two days and fingers at a time.
Truth Telling
Telling the truth about Parkinson’s Disease and educating are my tasks. I wish that everyone with Parkinson’s exercised hard for an hour five days each week, practiced speech five days a week, and did some type of serious cognitive work every day. But we don’t and we should because doing those things can make us better… at everything.
And you can put that in the book!
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Dan Stultz, M.D., is a retired physician who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease 14 years ago at the age of 57. He practiced internal medicine in San Angelo, Texas, for 28 years and became the President/CEO of Shannon Health System. He served as President /CEO of the Texas Hospital Association from 2007 to 2014 working on medical and health policy. He served as guest faculty at the Texas A&M Medical School in Round Rock and retired in 2016. He and Alice live in Georgetown, Texas.