Once, I was A Teenager

here is a link to the audio version, in case you would rather listen to this blog:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA5VNVkA4HA

After my brief, and colorful, stint as a pre-teen the next logical step was to become a teenager and attend High School. Actually, it was something about which I really didn't have a choice, because if I had, I probably would have skipped that part. I entered High School thirty-five years ago, and although I have my own three kids who have graduated from the institution within the last several years, I am not very well informed on the current mind set of the modern High School Student. All I really know is that in my day the mature and current High School student was seemingly obsessed with toilet humor.

My Freshman year 1979-1980

I mentioned in the first part of this blog, Once, I Was A Child, that a large part of Freshman hazing by the older students involved pushing a penny around a toilet seat with your nose, either as a solo act or as part of a race. This race was largely similar to a potato sack race.....with a toilet instead of a bag and a penny instead of a rope around your ankle. And actually, now that I think about, pushing a penny with your nose around a toilet seat really didn't involve jumping either, (unless of course your coach who was standing in the bathroom stall behind you while you knelt in front of the toilet would kick you in the backside, urging you on to greater speed because the other guy was making the broad turn at the top of the seat and you were still on the first leg). So, in looking back to a moment ago, I would have to say that referring to these two races as mostly similar, was over stating the matter. They were only similar by the definition that they were both races.

Being singled out to come face to face with a toilet seat was bad enough, but there was another reason for my trepidation about walking the halls of higher education. If you entered High School with someone in a grade or two above you that was already holding a grudge against you than your life was pretty much over. Your being singled out for various humiliations or random acts of physical pain were no longer mere happenstance, but deliberate acts of vengeance. We are now at the place where I re-enter the story because I had such a personal attendant.

His name was Steve, and he was a Junior when I entered as a Freshman. The only explanation that I can come up with for Steve not being my biggest fan was possibly because his sister was in my class and she definitely was a fan. But I was indifferent towards her and probably a little cruel if truth be told because I was just too cool, (or so I thought). I say that this is a possible explanation, but who really knows. Maybe someday I'll figure it out. Except for the few of the one-sided good times that I had with Steve, life while attending High School my first year was really not too bad. I would be standing by my locker with several friends, and a few of them would win the lottery and be selected to answer for their crime of having dared to enter the halls of teenage education. The imagined trespass was swiftly, and some times harshly, dealt with in one creative way or another. And even though I had friends and acquaintances who had to push a penny, I never did, nor did I ever get invited to have a face to face interaction with the toilet seat.

All of that happened from Monday through Friday, but the weekends were a different story altogether. There was a time during my Sophomore year when one of my friends decided to drive five of us to a Drive-in Theater on a Saturday night. Some of the local theaters charged a flat rate per car, no matter how many you had in the car, and others would cost a few dollars for each passenger. We decided on the movies that we wanted to see and realized that they were showing at a theater that charged a per-customer fee. So, being the socially-responsible, and civic-minded teenagers that we were, we decided to take the friend's family station wagon that night so that we could smuggle three of us in the back, thereby successfully avoiding the cover charge, saving us a cumulative total of nine dollars. Of course, the driver and his passenger had to pay, but the six dollars was absorbed by everyone.

I don't remember a lot of details of the events that happened DURING the movie, but I will never forget the after part. It was about one a.m. in the morning, and we decided that it appeared to be appropriate to light some M80 firecrackers in a few quite neighborhoods and wake some people up. We thought that it might even be a fun idea to put a few in random mailboxes and blow them up. My friends told me that the M80 was a quarter stick of dynamite, but after a friend had one go off underneath his foot, I was skeptical. Oh, they were large, and the explosion was impressive, but I'm sure that he would have lost his foot if the M80s were really a quarter stick of dynamite. The way this all came about, was as follows. I was riding in the front with the driver, and the others were in the back. The three in the back seat were rather cramped as they were relatively big kids. We had just started the early morning entertainment and the boy in the middle of the backseat was going to be the first to light one of the large firecrackers and toss it out the window. He proceeded to light it, waited for a second while it burned half way down the fuse, and threw it at the side window, where it promptly hit the door post and bounced right back between his legs. Well, as I'm sure you can imagine, there was some very frantic activity as the boy in the middle tried to stand up to get away from the burning bomb, and the other two boys tried to help, but at the same time, get as far away as possible, which really was only a few inches. The driver attempted to pull over and stop while all the action in the back seemed to be happening in slow motion, that is until about one second later when there was a muffled explosion under the foot of the kid in the middle, who had managed to step on the firecracker, which was still burning, and now between his foot and the seat. The explosion was loud in the confines of the car, and the small space was instantly filled with smoke and floating seat stuffing. The firecracker had blown a large hole in the backseat, and when we were able to stop, the hapless victim hobbled out of the car, hopping around, howling in pain and shock, as his shoe smoked and we waited for the car to air out. I suppose the guy was lucky that something soft was under his foot when the explosive went off because it appeared that a significant portion of the blast was absorbed by the car seat.

This picture was taken during my Junior year and was the 81-82 school year.

After my first two years at a large public High School, I transferred to a small private school. What do I mean by small? I went from a school with about 2000 kids to a school with about 120. There were several reasons for doing this. One was that it was the school that my dad had attended and I really enjoyed the stories he would tell of his experiences and adventures while there. Another was that it just seemed to be a better fit for me. I was somewhat lost in a big student body and actually kind of a timid kid. I also had an innocent face and demeanor about me, which meant that I could mastermind a lot of mischief and not be a suspect. A good example of this happened during my junior year. I was in my fourth period U.S. History class, and we were going to be shown a movie that day. In the early eighties, there was nothing that even remotely resembled digital media, but class room movies involved a projector on a large metal cart and reels of film. The full reel was mounted on the front of the projector, the film wound its way through where the image was cast onto a large viewing screen, and then taken up and rewound onto a take-up reel mounted on the back end. The empty take-up reel system usually worked flawlessly, unless of course, somebody had put a pencil into one of the holes in the empty reel resulting in a pile of film on the floor because the take-up reel no longer was able to freely spin. I did just such a thing that day in fourth period U.S. History. I was served well by my innocent look because even though I was the one who was sitting right next to the projector, and even though I was now the only student clearly without a pencil on my desk, (meaning there was an excellent chance that the pencil used in the film reel caper was mine), the teacher pointedly asked several other students who had done it but did not once look at, or ask me if I had done it.

My Junior Year...being a typical goof-off.

Towards the end of my junior year, various students began to campaign for the next year's student council offices. I got involved in the fast-paced world of small school politics by helping to run a friend's campaign, which actually just included water painting cheesy slogans on a square of white butcher paper. At the end of a brutal three-week campaigning trail, the student body would all gather at a local park for lunch and an afternoon of well-planned candidate speeches, after which we would return to the school, and the voting would begin. On the morning of the big day, about two hours before we all went down to the park for the speeches, one of my friends approached me and suggested that I should run for the Student Body President. At first, I thought he was joking, and then I thought, "why not?". So I went to the park that day, stood up before the gathered students, and gave an entirely impromptu speech. It must have been pretty good because I won, beating out two other strong opponents. I really don't know what I said, it being over 35 years ago, but I spent the eighty two-eighty three school year as the big cheese,( emphasis on cheese ).

Senior Picture 1983

Senior Picture !983

So, even though this did not cover every part of my High School career, I felt like what I shared here covered pretty much how the four years went for me.  In the first installment of this blog, I stated that it would be a two-part series, but I have decided to extend it to include my college years. It will be titled, I Even Went On To Higher Education, Once.  I will begin working on it in the next couple of days and post it soon.

Once, I Was A Child

here is a link to the audio version, in case you would rather listen to this blog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylPhPIoqpCc

     Not quite a year ago I started a blog about my life, the struggles, victories, and in general, the things that I find to be amusing. My writing began with a brief history of my childhood, and it has developed into my current life as an adult who deals with Spinocerebellar Ataxia to the best of my ability. I make light of my current challenges and daily frustrations, and in the future, I am planning to stay with that theme, but from the very beginning, various people have commented about reading the views expressed from my childhood and how they had enjoyed them. In light of this thought, I decided to go back to my growing-up years and share with you all some more details surrounding that topic, in a three-part series. This will not directly reflect on my dealings with Ataxia, which I usually take head-on, but I am happy to give you more of the stories from my growing up years, and so now I would like to present to you:

                                  Once, I Was A Child....Part 1.
                                                                                        

     For me, life began at a very young age, and I strongly suspect, that like many of you, early childhood revolved around infancy.  I know what you are thinking at this point, that to begin my initial quest at this particular stage just wasn't very original of me, and I'm sorry, but I was not familiar with the term of copycat yet. I did, however, know the phrase jinks, and I distinctly remember the doctor hoisting me up by my ankles, soundly slapping me, as he yelled out,"Jinks!". I remember thinking that this guy doesn't seem to have a clear understanding of the rules of Jinks. How long ago did he get slapped? Thirty-five, maybe forty years ago? But I was in a good mood; I mean it being my birthday and all, so I bought him a Coke anyway and later as we drank our sodas in the doctor's lounge I went over the rules of Jinks with him. He seemed to be clear when I left to go and see some of my buddies, who just so happened to be beginning their childhood adventures too, and who were currently laying low in the nursery.

     The year was 1964 and, besides this vivid recollection, everything else was a blur for me until about the age when I started Kindergarten. This marked an event that will forever be burned into my memory because it was at this time that I began to experience a random forearm being thrown across my chest at forty-five miles per hour. This would happen whenever my parents would make a quick stop, and I was the one who was riding in the front seat of the family car. Honestly, I think I would have sustained less trauma to my little body if I would have been allowed instead to bounce my head off the dashboard or fly through the windshield. Sometimes I was lucky enough to be in the back seat, flopping around completely unencumbered, working off my last candy-induced spike of blood sugar, when the brakes were gently tapped, (all the way to the floor). Really, at these times, all that would happen was that I would get a strong whiff, and intimate knowledge of, the kind of material used to construct the front seats. Some of my favorite times as a kid happened in the family car.

     From as far back as I can remember I have personally been in possession a sweet tooth. A working theory that I have is that from day one I was given a bottle of chocolate milk, either the kind straight from a carton or the Nestle Quik powered formula that comes in a can. That's got to be the reason why I go weak in the knees and feel utterly powerless when I find myself in the presence of dessert. Just a hint, slight aroma, or the mere suggestion that there may be a dessert, will start me hyperventilating and shaking. I also discovered at a young age that I have no willpower. After I have devoured the sixth cookie or second piece of cake, I will black out for a few moments.That's got to be it because when I regain consciousness, I discover that I've got another cookie, or third piece of cake, approaching my mouth and I have absolutely no recollection of how it got there. And, of course, I feel obligated to eat it. I mean,  I've already touched it, and I don't want to look like I took it on purpose and then changed my mind. I would prefer if people don't form the opinion that I'm an indecisive person. I heard a crazy rumor one time as a kid that suggested that there was a link between sweets and obesity. Well! I thought that I might just have to field test that assumption and gather my own data. At present, I can tell you that the data is still coming in, but the evidence is spreading and stretching in favor of the rumor being true. Dang, it!

     One of the phrases that I heard as a child and thought to be somewhat odd, was when my mother would say to me," Don't touch that, you don't know where it's been." I would always respond with," Oh yeah? We don't know where babies come from either, but that doesn't stop you from touching one every chance you get." Now, you understand that when I say that I always responded this way that the verbal comeback was all done in my head, right? I mean, I was kind of a daft kid, but I wasn't stupid. Looking back on the whole thing, I am now convinced that my parents had a plan to keep this information from me for as long as possible. I think that they were hoping they could somehow incorporate the baby thing into my twenty-first birthday party. They were saving the big reveal until then, and I'm not sure how it was all supposed to work. Was there going to be charts? Maybe graphs, or some pictures? I would have feigned shock and complete surprise, mumbling something like," I thought the belly button was somehow involved."  Sorry Mom and Dad but my friends had already clued me in several weeks prior.

      An entirely bittersweet event during my long and sorted career as a child was when my parents would decide to pack my brothers and me into the backseat of the family car and take us out for pizza. This was the sweet part of the memory, because, number one, we really liked pizza, and number two, because we also knew that on the way home after the meal we would be stopping at our favorite ice cream parlor for cones. And so, we would all pile into the car, drive an hour or so, inhale some pizza, (of which my mom was lucky to get any), and leave. Our next stop was the ice cream store, where we were allowed to purchase a double-scooped on a sugar cone. Of course, the cones were usually gone before we left the parking lot, even on occasion before my dad had a chance to pay. The sweet part of the evening was now over, and the bitter segment was now about to begin because the long drive provided my brothers with plenty of time to be creative and come up with new ways to make my life.....uh, interesting. With their stomachs full of pizza, and their veins flowing from the frozen sugar, they would begin to formulate new plans and plot my ultimate demise. But, honestly, I've got to say that the old standby was quite efficient and they eventually would always come back to it, so I knew what to expect in that regard and was just waiting for it. They always made sure I was on one of the ends of the backseat, by the door, and they would begin a rousing game of corners. They would violently and gleefully throw themselves to my side of the car like my dad was stunt driving on two wheels, successfully smashing me against the door. I stated that the game was called corners...corners, with an "s." This implies the use of both sides of the car, but I don't recall my dad doing any two-wheel driving on the other side. And I didn't know anything about machinery or car doors in those days,( this statement is in no way meant to be misleading because I still don" know anything about machinery and car doors ), but I was scared to death that the door would spring open under the weighty siege of their attacks. In my young mind, I could clearly see myself being sucked out of the door, never to be seen or heard from again. My brothers, I'm sure, would have calmly shut the door. Thirty minutes later, when my parents did a head count and wondered where I was, would have responded that a few miles back I had suddenly announced that I needed to stretch my legs and needed to get some fresh air, upon which I had opened the door and stepped out.

     I was a pretty typical boy, forever being yelled at, and/or admonished for running with sharp objects. This was a situation where hindsight really was twenty-twenty. As a child, I never understood that saying. My parents used it frequently, and whenever they did I would always turn around and look behind me, but I never was able to catch a glimpse of whatever they were talking about. I think the first time that I might have begun to get an inkling as to what they meant by this was when I ran around our camp tent with a friend while playing Early-Settlers and Native Americans, (we didn't call it that then, but hindsight being what it is, and wanting to be politically correct....). I, of course, had a sharpened stick and was having way to much fun to think about the danger I was facing. Not only was I taking a chance that the stick could impale me like a hot dog being prepared for the campfire, but I was also ignoring my father. Stupidly thinking I was safe because he was busy setting up camp and would probably forget the whole thing once he smelled the meal that my mother was preparing. Well, I had too many odds stacked against me and ended up tripping over a tent peg, cutting the top of my head with the stick. I could have used a full understanding of the twenty-twenty principal BEFORE all the dumb stuff, but I imagine that that's how it is supposed to work.

     Sometime around 1971, when my little brother was born, my parents got a new family vehicle, a Suburban. It gave us more room, which provided my older brothers with a better chance to build some excellent momentum before plastering me against the door. But on the positive side, Mom and Dad began to take us to the drive-in, because we could watch the first movie, which was usually a classic Disney movie like The Apple Dumpling Gang, and then spread out our sleeping bags in the back and go to sleep while they watched the second film. Back then, drive-in theaters were the main way of seeing a movie, and we had several large ones close to our house. I have another story that revolves around a drive-in, but it occurred when I was in High School, so, for now, I will leave that subject and come back to that in my next writing.


     Every summer, from third grade on, I went away for a week to summer camp. The summer after fifth grade I was invited by a friend to attend the camp that he went to every summer. This was a new place for me, and I was looking forward to it. As soon as my friend and I arrived, I knew that I was really going to like this place and would be having a lot of fun. But the first night left me wondering if I had chosen well. I was in my sleeping bag and sound asleep,(a skill I had learned from an earlier age), when I began to have a dream that a bag was being held over my head. The dream became more violent, and as I struggled more and more, the bag was pressed harder. I was awake now and beginning to panic as I realized that this wasn't just a dream, that I was covered entirely by my sleeping bag, and there was a significant weight being pressed down upon me. Suddenly, and without warning, the pressure moved off me, and I was released. I threw open my bag, to find that every eye from every bunk was on me. And standing next to where I lay was our camp counselor looking very bewildered, and with an embarrassed expression on his face. Apparently, what had happened was that he had been dreaming that he had caught a baby bear in a sack, and the more I struggled, the more determined he became to keep it in the bag. Eventually, (only seconds that felt like minutes), the noise had awoken everyone in the cabin, which successfully awoke the counselor, who quickly realized his mistake and released me. But, besides being mistaken for wildlife, I loved the camp and went back every summer after that until I graduated from High School.


     In the nineteen-seventy-four/seventy-five school year I was in fourth grade, and to the best of my recollection, this was when I began to catch faint wisps of a rumor. A rumor that at this point was somewhat elusive and vague, but that brought with it a chill in the air. It wasn't until the next school year when my older brothers entered High School that the strange tales and haunting stories of Freshman hazing became a reality. But I was only in the fifth grade and had other concerns. Besides, I still had a long stretch of four years, (which seemed like a lifetime in my young mind), before I needed to worry. This mindset worked flawlessly and carried me worry free until dinner time on the evening of my brothers first day of High School. The evening meal that night was filled with stories of the many hapless freshmen who were singled out of the herd to push a penny with their nose around a toilet seat. Tales were told, and pictures were painted in my mind of victims being lined up in bathroom stalls to become the receiver of the dreaded swirly. The basic idea behind the aptly named swirly, for those who may not know, is to have the toilet flushed while one's head is politely, and gently, introduced to the bowl and then held under water, causing the hair to "swirl" when the bowl is flushed. If the head is kept in place until the water has finished it's twirling and gone down the drain, the result is a twisted, wet hair-do.  I have come close on several occasions, while bent over and cleaning the bowl at home, to falling forward and performing a self-administered swirly. This has happened when I have been engaged in a routine cleaning of the bowl, and trust me on this one, if I did immerse my head on accident, my arms would start to flail about in shock, and my hand WOULD find the handle, successfully giving myself a quickie hair wash. I have gotten myself into many seemingly impossible scenarios. But my High School years will be covered in part two of this series, titled: Once, I Was A Teenager.

I Can't Find The Reset Button!

here is a link to the audio version, in case you would rather listen to this blog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTpOPbufh6I

    I found myself at a place the other day where I was pondering on all the individual, and various, gizmos, gadgets, and high tech things that have become a part of my life. To be more specific, I was pondering on all the times that a said piece of tech, one in which I had come to rely on, would not turn on or function correctly. This is a phenomenon that seems to be tied directly to Murphy's Law, as it always seems to happen at the most inopportune time.

    I was imaging how convenient it would be to be able to schedule these break-downs in advance since we all know that these things are inevitable.  If a piece of equipment, say, like your smartphone, would just be upfront with you when you set it up for the first time. It would be a very helpful feature if it would tell you beforehand that after the first week, after you have gotten it all set-up the way you like it...with all the applications installed that you want to use and arranged in a pleasing way...that it was going to experience a glitch, resulting in the need to do a reset and the loss of your customized set-up.

    Being forewarned would be very helpful. Just think about how handy it would be if you knew beforehand that your tech would fail on a specific day, at a particular time. You would be better prepared, probably even have a plan to deal with or fix the issue.

Yep! That's my plan.....the only problem is that with my Ataxia I would more than likely miss,(even at this range), and either hit myself in the forehead first or put a huge dent in the table.

    There were times, in the past, where all I needed to do was only to push a reset button or to hold two buttons in sequence, like the volume up button and the start button at the same time, for example. But this is just not the case with the various disorders of the body, namely my Ataxia.

    At least, as of the current date, I haven't located any little portholes, like behind my ear, that I can stick a bent paper clip into and have my balance put back to factory specifications. Nor have I yet to discover any combination of movements or body manipulations, like sticking out my tongue while squeezing my nose, that will enable me to speak clearly.

    I find at times that if my PC is acting wonky, (a technical way of describing an electronic glitch...really...look it up), it needs to be re-started, or re-booted. This ability would really come in handy and be an excellent way to explain my Ataxia, as in,"Just hang on a second George, I need to do a quick brain re-boot and I'll be right with you."

    There also may be a need from time to time to run a system defragmentation because there is very minimal available free Ram left in the system to keep everything running smoothly.  Or there may be times when the PC becomes choppy, begins to lag, and/or hang-up (three more highly technical terms). I guess the closest thing to an "Ataxia De-Frag." is getting enough sleep at night.

    I have discovered the universal truth that I believe most Ataxians have found, that rest is essential. I usually start my day early and have energy, or enough available system Ram, to get needed chores done. I try to cram as many things as possible before one to one-thirty in the afternoon because that's about the time that the system begins to hang up, and there starts to be some severe scattering of available resources.

    It starts to look as if there is an impending danger of a complete system crash, and by the end of the day, depending on how much I have done during that day and exerted myself, I am merely DONE! Being able to get 7 to 8 hours of sleep at night acts as a system cleaning or a system reboot for me.

    During the day all my resources become scattered, fragmented and used up. At night all these systems are brought back together in one meeting room for yet another in a long series of pep talks. The problem is that every night fewer system administrators are being found to come to the meetings.

    Yep....I'm slowly running out of Ram and the only expanding going on is not tied to more memory, or processing power, but to calories.

     I'm in need of a reset button, but I just can't seem to find one.

    

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Neurological Smack Down

here is a link to the audio version, in case you would rather listen to this blog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvIWthJdU8Y

     One of the earliest memories that I have as a kid centers around professional wrestling. My mom was a huge fan of it, or I should say that in particular, she cheered for a specific wrestler named Gentleman Dutch Savage, who was part of a local wrestling circuit. The arena was located about an hour away from our home, and the action was also broadcast every Saturday night on a local t.v station. I can remember many tense and nail-biting weekend evenings in our house as we cheered and booed appropriately at the many diverse situations in which Dutch would find himself battling.

     By the time I entered Kindergarten I had already been soundly immersed in the world of wrestling, and it was there, on the first day, that I met a classmate who would become my best friend. Soon, there were a lot of sleepovers at each other's homes, and I joyfully discovered that my best friend also loved wrestling. We spent many Saturday nights glued to the television, and then afterward, we would spend the rest of the evening imagining ourselves to be residents of the ring, re-enacting all the action we had just witnessed. As a kid, I could believe myself to be a hero of the squared circle with a name that brought fear and respect, something like Steel Knuckles. My friend and I would jump off the furniture, pretending that it was the top ropes. We used pillows, picturing them as steel folding chairs, swinging away at each other like the men on t.v, and we would wrap tape around paper towel tubes and imagine them to be foreign weapons that had been smuggled into the ring when the ref wasn't looking. Then the ultimate came when my best friend had a 7-year old birthday party, and his parents not only took us out for pizza but also took us to see Portland Wrestling, the show we had been watching! We were even treated to a main event consisting of a three-man tag team, involving The Battling Midgets. I look back at the memory now with a fondness. But also through the eyes of a parent and realize that taking a bunch of six and seven-year-olds to see grown men pretend to hate each other and beat on one another in a little roped off ring was probably not the kind of decision that would propel one to a parent-of-the-year status.

     Most people, of course, understand that the so-called Professional Wrestling is as fake as margarine that pretends to be butter. It has been choreographed, and, unless you are one of those people who is thinking that the Tooth Fairy most likely is stuck in traffic but will eventually come to retrieve the 40-year-old tooth that's under your pillow, you have come to the realization that it is all just an elaborate show. Sadly, this is not the case with Ataxia. My childhood fantasy concerning a stout gladiator of the pro-wrestling circuit named Steel Knuckles has been replaced by a forty-nine-year-old flabby man named Jerky Cramps.

     I sincerely wish, though, that all my self-inflicted injuries and falls had been scripted and rehearsed beforehand, and ONLY looked real. The best that I can do at this point is to try and limit the kinds of situations that cause me to fall. Awhile ago at the Ataxia support group that I attend we had a Physical Therapist come and talk to the group about balance concerns and some safety issues. The topic that he explored with us that is relevant to this article was the subject of falling. Most of us tense up; I know I do when we trip or feel ourselves being pulled by that relentless stalker known as gravity. Myself, I'm always trying to avoid the invitation,( read blog #32 ). The speaker was telling us that we need just to relax and lay ourselves gently on the ground, folding the knees and laying down sideways, like you are getting into your bed. This would probably work great, but I seem always to forget, and at the moment of stumbling, stiffen up and fight it. After a ten to fifteen-second impromptu ritualistic-style dance, I will usually end up falling anyway. And the fall is made worse by the fact that all my pre-fall dancing has only helped me to pick up a full head of steam so that when I do hit the ground, I'm sure to injure myself. The latest example of this was when I recently stumbled on my carport stairs, did a dance routine for a few moments, and body slammed myself on the concrete driveway.

     Somehow, it all comes back to wrestling. I started childhood watching two opponents face each other in a rope surrounded ring. As an adult, well....when I hear the bell, and look around, I see only myself. You might think that this would be an easy win, but no, I usually lay the smack down and have become my own worst enemy.

Conspiracy Of Bad Puns

here is a link to the audio version, in case you would rather listen to this blog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9xpEYNUAJQ

    I drop things.....occasionally. Now, before I say anything else, I need to tell you my definition of the word occasionally.  Based on my personal experience, and for the purpose of this article,"occasionally," is about every thirty to forty-five minutes. The thing is that I REALLY want to hang on to stuff.....I LIKE to hold on to things. But I am beginning to suspect that several years ago my brain and my muscles came to an agreement that it would be fun to play a trick on my fingers. Everything will be going along fine, the fingers growing more and more confident in their ability to grasp things,(and, suddenly, a loud voice is heard, shouting, Okay everybody, that's a wrap!),(( This is bad pun number 1.)).  And then suddenly, without any warning, there is drop-age.

     Sometimes it is because the brain will send out the correct message but along the route to my hand the original message will be subtly changed, and a non-sensical one will get delivered. This phenomenon is almost exactly like the game I used to play in grade school, called Gossip. All the students would form a single file line, and the teacher would whisper something in the first person's ear. Usually, it was something pretty simple, a short statement along the lines of, "My dog is brown." Everyone would whisper this core message into the ear of the person next to them, and the last child in line would say out loud what the message was when it got to them.  Usually, the dog was no longer brown, and more to the point, the dog was no longer even mentioned. "My dog is brown,"  was now, "Someone will need to weed the garden soon."

     Other times the dropage is due not to a correct message that has been changed in its travel through the system...but because the hand muscles receive a prior agreed upon signal from the brain,(usually a subtle wink or nod). This will alert them that since everything has been working well for the fingers for the last several minutes....that it is time once again to not show up for work,(kind of a hands-off approach,....pun number 2). This is becoming a problem and people, (mostly me),  are starting to take notice and complain about the lack of brain and muscle support. It is frustrating for me to suddenly lose my grip on something and drop it, so as much as I can, I use an aid whenever available. My walking sticks have wrist straps on them which I always use. If I drop one while using it, which happens more often than I would like, the stick doesn't hit the ground, causing me to bend over to retrieve it, which, more than likely, will result in a new situation. It really gets exhausting just thinking and writing about it, and I'm all worn out and may have to take a rest break before I finish this. But back to the point I wanted to make, which is, that any aid or whatever helps me and makes holding on to objects more accessible is a great thing, and I would not hesitate to use it.

     And then there are the legs, or more specifically, the calve muscles. I'm beginning to suspect that they may be getting ready to form a Union. At least, there seems to be SOMETHING going on. During the day they appear to be on their best behavior, you know...when they think management is watching. Nighttime seems to be a little different story, though. There seem to be some secret meetings going on, and all the troublemakers and usual suspects begin to show up. Based on the cramping in my legs that I have been experiencing only at night, the talks, or meetings, going on have been becoming very intense. All the restoration that goes on at night,( read my former blog, titled I Can't Find The Reset Button), continues to get interrupted because of these skirmishes and various other body members are taking notice and beginning to grumble. But so far the legs keep showing up for work every day, and as long as they don't stage a walk-out I should be okay,(a bad pun, I know, but I had set myself up for that one and couldn't resist.)

     I am aware that both the speculation that my brain and muscles are deliberately tricking my fingers and the idea that my leg muscles may be entertaining Union negotiations right now are nothing more than conspiracy theories at this point. But I have presented what I believe to be some very conclusive evidence, and I think they are both theories that have legs.(bad pun #4). Many things are a source of frustration for me,  but I would have to say that the loss of my ability to maintain a grip is, ( here comes the 5th and final bad pun..... Wait for it....), hands-down the greatest.

Avoiding The Invitation

here is a link to the audio version, in case you would rather listen to this blog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdnDQbY0WjE

There are a few things in my life; I have come to realize, that remain to be incredibly consistent. One of which is the invitations to do bodily harm that I receive from gravity.  I keep trying my best to ignore its hospitality, but it never seems to be discouraged, relentlessly sending out invites every day. There are days when I may have received dozens by the end of the day. These invitations remind me in a lot of ways of junk mail, both the kind that I receive in my physical mailbox and the type that comes to me digitally. I don't have any real need for all of the useless flyers and adds, and frankly, I wish that they would just stop.

The digital version of junk or unsolicited mail is referred to as Spam, so I guess in a lot of ways you could say that gravity, for a balance-challenged individual such as myself, is a form of Spam. The invitations vary of course, but the desired result is always the same, that I will fall hard on the ground, bounce off a door, wall, or tree, or in some other way injure myself. Gravity, you see, is very creative....and the invitations usually read along the same lines, which is something like, " Dear Mr. Wolfer, your presence is desired on the ground, and you are cordially invited to lose your balance and/or, by any means available at present, cause bodily harm to yourself ".

Of course, I am always trying to evade gravity and avoid attending the events to which I have been invited, but it is not as easy as it seems. The summons can come from anywhere, at any time. It's not like I can just forget to leave a forwarding address and hope the law of physics will not find me. It reminds me of a teacher I had in 5th grade. Her name was Mrs. Beeson, and I'm reminded of her because....as a student in her classroom I couldn't get away with anything. I often wondered if she had eyes in the back of her head because it seemed like she saw everything.

So I suppose that you are thinking to yourself at this point that I could just stop checking my mailbox thereby successfully avoiding the invitation, right? I mean, I can't go if I never know I was invited in the first place, correct? Well, in theory, you would definitely be on to something....if gravity only used the mail. But apparently, it has decided that it would be much more efficient using a multiple-pronged approach, or attack. It has also been making soliciting phone calls that I thought may be wrong numbers that someone called by mistake because when I answer no one is there, but it must be gravity calling and leaving some kind of subliminal message because I will almost immediately drop, trip over, fall down, or run into something. And as far as I know, there is not a do-not-call list that I can get on to make it stop.



Nothing, it would seem, will stop gravity, but just in case it can't reach me through the mail or by phone, it has a third strategy. The squirrelly little fella will show up at my door under the disguise of a salesman. He MAY think he has me fooled, trying to sell me on his particular brand of carpet cleaning or home security system, but I know it's him. I tried putting up a No Solicitation sign, but somehow the little weasel always seems to get through.

So, in the end, it would seem that I really, besides tying myself to the top of a flagpole and having my meals fed to me on the end of a long stick, am out of strategies, or options, for avoiding the invitation. But I am always open to suggestions....got any?

In Need Of A Tune-Up

here is a link to the audio version, in case you would rather listen to this blog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE-_8EhU9Qs

     Going in to see a Neurologist is, in a lot of ways, like taking your car to the mechanics. You can't just give the mechanic your car key and say, "The car won't go." They need specifics, something along the lines of, "I'm starting to backfire and stutter....uh, I mean the car's exhaust is starting to backfire and stutter when I creep along or go slower than five miles an hour. Which seems to be happening a lot more lately, uh, the creeping along thing, I mean." Actually the more I think about it, the more similarities I see between my visits to the Doctor and my visits to the Mechanics. I'm also beginning to have a clearer understanding of why the car is starting to groan in protest whenever I step on the gas, asking for the extra power needed to successfully get to the other side of the speed bump that's so smugly trying to block my path. My zero-to-sixty has also changed. No longer do I hit the ground running. Oh, I still hit the ground,(inevitably and more often than I used to), but my zero-to-sixty is now closer to zero-to...... all day.

     If I let my imagination go, I can begin to see that there are a lot of parallels between the workings of an automobile and my physical state. There are times when the brakes squeak, the gas mileage goes down, and the vent only blows hot air. The tires wear out, the upholstery begins to wear thin and rip, and the new car smell is nothing more than a memory of a distant memory. Of course, there is also the complaint that the car just does not handle the way it used to. Some of this is because the car is getting older and has been around the block a few times. To be entirely truthful, though, it never was a really great car, from the very beginning. Nothing sleek and sporty, like a Porsche, Corvette, or Lamborghini. Never a muscle car, like a Mustang, Camaro, or Charger. I was always closer in resemblance to a Maverick, Volkswagon Bug, or AMC Pacer. There is also some likeness to a Chevy Chevette that Melissa and I owned when we were first married. We traded it in after about a year, and one of the dealership lot attendants was a friend that Melissa had known from High School. We asked him later about that car, and he told us that they couldn't even get the thing in reverse to get it around to the back of the building! That's the way my Ataxia is......somethings work and some things don't. My brain is like a clutch, sometimes it engages, and sometimes...." son, it looks like you've burned up your clutch"!

     Well, if I'm going to compare myself and Ataxia to a car, then the next obvious subject would be to talk about breakdowns. So, there I am, stuck, and after a thorough examination of the facts, conclude that the car won't go. So what do I do? Call a tow truck. In my time, I have experienced two kinds of trucks. One reminds me of my walker because the car is only half lifted up, leaving two wheels still engaging the ground, and basically, it just rolls along behind the truck. The other method is the wheelchair of the towing world because the whole car is pulled up onto a flatbed truck and now has movement, just on top of another vehicle.

     Fortunately, as with a car, there are routine maintenance steps that can be taken. No, it will not convert my Volkswagen Bug into a Porsche, but it will keep me on the road. Ataxia has many forms, and no two people are entirely affected the same. However, there are similarities to some of what we deal with because of this Neurological disease/condition, such as, issues with balance, difficulty swallowing, writing, or talking. There are also different ways that people have found to deal or survive in the face of their personal struggle with this condition, or disease. I would like to share with you the four ways in which I have come to look at and live with, my Ataxia. I have said these before, but as a way of reminding myself, I will repeat them.

     1. Acceptance.  I was diagnosed eleven years ago at the age of 38. It came as quite a shock, and although I acknowledged that the Doctor was talking to me, the whole thing had a nightmarish quality to it. Honestly, I think I lived in denial for quite a while. I would explain to family and friends what Cerebellar Ataxia was and talk about my MRI openly, and on the outside, I looked like I was taking it well, but inside I was a jumble of raging emotions. Anger, frustration, sadness, and confusion. I really just wanted everything to be like I had never even gotten the news and continued to try and do everything on my own.  But when I began to see the changes in myself, that all I was really doing was making things harder for myself and others, and even setting myself up for otherwise completely avoidable injuries, that was when I had to stop and reevaluate. I permitted to be who I am and to embrace the opportunities I had before me that were only there because of my Ataxia.

     2. Attitude.  Once I accepted the reality of my Ataxia, I quickly made the connection to my disposition. It was one thing to understand my limitations, but it was quite another to be happy IN SPITE OF the current physical reality. I say physical reality because that is what it is. You are free to believe what you want to believe, my friends, but I believe that there is a Spiritual reality where Ataxia will no longer be a part of me. In fact, it is largely the reason why I can laugh in the face of adversity and joke about my daily struggles. The other reasons are because laughter keeps me from crying, and also helps me from making the loved ones around me miserable. I will not live a life that is embittered by struggles, or otherwise. I don't always succeed at having and maintaining a positive attitude, but I will tell you that when I do, my limitations are a little more bearable to live with.

     3. Exercise. After my diagnosis in 2003, the one thing I discovered was that it was crucial that I kept moving. My motto soon became," if I don't use it, I'll lose it'.  For the first nine years after my diagnosis I worked full-time, so constant movement and exercise weren't a problem. But, I lost that job in 2012, due to the advancement of Ataxia, and as I stated in my last blog, the concern became what I would do and how I would keep from degenerating faster. The job that I was doing at the time was physically demanding and wiping me out, but at least it was providing constant exercise for me. So at that point, I began a daily walking regime. I continued doing as many things around the house as possible and also began to volunteer at different places as a way to stay active. My motto is still the same, and I continue to do whatever I can and will do it until I can't do it anymore.

     4. Support. I cannot accurately describe to you how big of a role this has played in my life or how vital I believe support to be. For the first nine years of my personal struggle with Ataxia, I faced it with the love and support of family, but I did not know anyone else like me. When I reached out and found a support group, I was amazed, and it really felt good to be with other people who knew my struggles, not because they were sympathizing with me, but because they were living in the same reality as I was. It was an inspiring time for me, and I began to seek out any avenue that I could that would put me in touch with others whose struggle is like mine. I now have friends all over, not just the states, but the world. I can't say for sure why this helps, but somehow it just does. It also is a very encouraging thing to be able to ask a question about your symptoms, or about various medicines, or any other general issue that may come up in your battle, and receive advice, encouragement, and support, sometimes in a humorous way. And the beauty of it all is that there is never a dumb question. Just friendship and unity in the knowledge that we all have had our lives disrupted by a variation of the same unwanted guest. Any advice I have for someone struggling would be to find a source of support.

     Our struggle is not easy my friends, but I want to encourage you all, whatever stage you're at to continue to fight, grab any hope you can and hang on, and know that you are not alone.  My best to all of you.