You might  be saying right now,”No No No, Tom! You got the title wrong – it’s supposed to be ‘ The Gift that keeps on GIVING’, not TAKING!” Well, I appreciate your concern, but I beg to differ – as the saying goes, “What I have written, I have written!!” Because the ‘Gift‘ I am going to be talking about today is none other than our old ‘friend‘, Parkinson’s Disease itself.

I’d like to take credit for that title phrase, but I can’t – that was actually said/written by none other than our most famous Parkie himself, Michael J. Fox! Now Michael, for the most part, is a pretty optimistic guy, much more than even myself –  I know this from reading all his books. I know he believes – and I respect and admire him for it – that although PD is a nasty disease, it has given him some gifts and good things in his life – like his foundation, and hope for the future. I, however, find it extremely difficult to call Parkinson’s any kind of gift – it’s more like a curse! Oh sure, I can say that because I have PD, I’ve been able to publish this blog and hopefully helped  individuals out there with info on PD, the occasional ‘laugh’, and hopefully some hope… And I know that it’s made me more aware of living life the best I can, and not take anything lightly or for granted. But that’s it, folks; everything else about PD is, in my opinion – and being blunt – a royal pain in the butt!

OK, then what do I mean by “The Gift That Keeps On Taking?” Well, what I I mean is this: Even if you DO think PD is a gift at times… all this ‘gift‘ does is TAKE TAKE TAKE; not give – well, not anything good anyway! For instance, in my case, Parkinson’s so far has:

• Taken my foot and toes flexability and it gave me Dystonia;
• Taken the flexability of my muscles, and gave me rigidity;
• Taken some of my basic, free-flowing movement, and gave me dyskinesias;
• Taken my iron stomach and free-flowing digestive system, and gave me constipation;
• Taken my balance and ability to walk anywhere I wanted to go, and gave me instability, slow walking, freezing episodes, and a much higher chance of falling;
• Taken my handwriting and typing ability, and gave me small and/or unintelligable writing, along with the ability to type with both hands (now I can only use the right hand);
• Taken… well, you get the picture.

Parkinson’s has taken MUCH more than it’s given; and the things it did give back are things I never would want in the first place! The sad part is that, unless we find that ‘cure‘, or a way to slow down or stop progression, the future is going to be fille with even more taking, and what it will give in return will be… well, downright UGLY!

But I do my best each day to live in the moment, be thankful, and try not to think about the future too much. But’s that’s not the reason I’m writing this post today; what I want to relate to you, my readers, is what happened to me in the last few weeks, when I once again discovered another part of me that our ‘dear‘ friend <yes, that’s sarcasm> Mr. Parkinson’s decided to take – and it was something I wasn’t expecting.

My Eyes, My Eyes!

So, to begin, we have to go back a couple of years. I had begun to notice I was having a tough time seeing long distances – it was either blurry, and/or had some slight double-vision. Wondering what was going on, I made a visit to my ophthalmologist, where I discovered another gift – or rather ‘Take‘ – from Mr. Parkinson’s.

I know that I’ve mentioned this before (probably in my ‘Parkinson’s Illegitimate Children‘ series of posts), but we Parkies, as a result of the disease, don’t blink our eyes as often a non-Parkie does. Hence, a lot of us have dry eye syndrome, and require lubricating drops in the eyes during the day. Turns out that was my problem – since I wasn’t blinking as often as I used to, my cornea became irritated, and the result was blurry and double vision. So my eye doc started me on a 10-day program of steroid drops – a drop in each eye twice a day. I was somewhat skeptical… but sure enough, 10 days later my far distance was back to normal! Woo hoo… although it was aggrevating to know that again in Parkinson’s was involved in ‘taking‘ something from me. But at least it was solved.

Or so I thought… Now go back to the latter part of 2021 – aound December. Once again, I began having episodes of bad distance vision – some blurryness, but this time it was the double vision that was bugging me! By March of this year, it had REALLY progressed – even watching our large screen TV from about 15-20 feet away was giving me constant double vision. But the worst was when I was driving. I remember one time having to drive home, and seriously being scared out of my gourd – everything on the road ahead of me was doubled! I had taken the freeway to get home, and I was seriously afraid that I would rear end someone or try to drive on that second road I was seeing and drive right off the freeway!

Luckily I made it home in one piece – but then I was determined to once again contact my eye doctor. I figured it was the same as before, so at first I asked him if he would simply prescribe me another 10-day course of those steroid drops, which he did via the phone. I figured in 10 days everthing would be ‘back to normal‘ once again.

But… those 10 days came and went, and my sight didn’t improve AT ALL! Now I was getting a little worried – Was there something seriously wrong with my eyes? Was my retina messed up? Or maybe it was my LASIK from 15 years ago that was somehow no longer working properly? I had no choice then but to book a full appointment with my ophthalmologist.

Time for an Appointment!

That appointment occured a couple of weeks ago. With trepidation and worry, I went in for that appointment, where they did a complete refraction – measured my pupils, checked my vision, checked my eye pressure, and dialated my eyes so the doc could check things out. 

When he came into the room, I could almost sense he wasn’t all that concerned. He asked me the usual questions, checked my chart, and did that thing where he uses the bright light with what I call the ‘Eyeball Microscope‘ so he can see into the back of my eye and check the retina. When that was all done, I braced myself for the ‘bad‘ news… And that’s when he told me the unexpected: My eyes were fine! No retina probems, no LASIK issues, and my cornea wasn’t irratated! “OK“, I said, “that’s a relief, I guess. But then what the heck is going on?“

It was then he hit me with the news that I really wasn’t expecting… Maybe you’ve guessed it already – yes, once again, it was that blasted Parkinson’s! Now we all know what Parkinson’s is – destruction of our brain’s dopamine production cells. And with that we have less and less dopamine in our brain, which affects our… what? Yep that’s right – muscle movement! Now, when your eye needs to focus on something far away, how does it do it? Maybe you never thought about it before…Well, the answer is… tiny little MUSCLES in and around the eye! AH HA!! Now you (and I) see the picture: As our disease advances, even the tiny muscles in the eyes slow down, with the result being our eyes can no longer cooperate together like they used to. That can cause the image in each eye to fall in different places on the retina. Our brains don’t like that, nor can it process that correctly, with the result being  double, blurry vision.

Well, I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that, once again, PD took something and gave me another ‘pain in the neck‘… Taking my distance vision and giving me back double vision! Ugh, will it never end? Uh, hmm… Let’s not go there, OK folks?

Who Won??

You may have thought that was the end of the story, and that old man Parkinson’s won… But HA! He may have taken natural distance vision from me, but he didn’t win this time! When my eye doctor got done explaining all this to an angry (and depressed) me, he then said, “But don’t worry, we can easily compensate for that.” WHAT?!? REALLY? Hallelujah, thank you Lord! He then preceeded to explain to me that they can prescribe ‘prism‘ glasses for me, and that would compensate for the double vision!

Now, in actually, my neurologist had said something about prism glasses when I briefly mentioned my eye problem to her at our last visit –  but I wasn’t listening all that well that day, so in my mind I had kinda “poo-pooed” that whole idea and basically forgot about it until that moment! But after I left,  for laughs, I had looked up ‘prism glasses‘ on Amazon, and this is what I found:

Yeah… Right, I’m going to wear something like THAT when driving – I’d look like a freak, and I can only imagine what a Police officer would say if he pulled me over wearing THOSE monstrosities! Luckily, my eye doc told me they can BUILD IN the prism effect right into the lenses in my new glasses, and those lenses would look like plain, normal glasses – perhaps the lens might be a tiny bit thicker, but not really noticable. Whew, was that a relief! So I left there, and made another perilous trip home with double vision and dialated pupils!

New Glasses

The next day, I took my new eyeglasses script into my favorite optical store. I picked out a new frame, and then ordered the new lens with the works –  Transitions, HD lenses, and glare and scratch resistant coatings. When done, they placed the order – should be here in less than two weeks! Even more lucky for me, they were running a special where if you order one pair of glasses, they would give you another pair FREE ! Yeah, it’s a cheap frame, and the lenses are basic; but I could get those, with the prism effect built-in, made right there in about an HOUR! So I picked out my “cheapy” frame, went home, and waited for the text telling me the glasses were ready. Sure enough, in about an hour I got the text to come and pick them up!

Once again, I made the harrowing driving trip back into town to the eyeglass store. And there the new (cheap) glasses were ready. Now, all that day my yes were screwed up with constant double vision, driving me nuts as usual. But when I put those new glasses on… My eyes went crazy for about a half second (guess my brain was trying to figure out what was going on) – then my eyes settled down, and for the first time in months, I could see everything clearly – the double vision was GONE! Wow, it was definatly one of those ‘moments‘… and I drove home this time with no vision problems nor scary thoughts. Of course, now that I could see everything once again, I had to go back to dealing with all those wacky, stupid drivers out there – but now at least, I could see them clearly once again!

And sure enough, just under two weeks later, my new permanent ‘premium‘ glasses came in. Worked just like the ‘cheapy‘ pair, but much better – nice, light frame, with a great pair of HD lens – and the prism effect built in. Looking at them, I couldn’t tell at all that they had the prism – they were not any thicker than my previous lenses were. And the Transitions gave me built-in sunglasses – since now I can’t wear regular, stand-alone sunglasses when driving.

What I’ve Learned

So that’s my story for today. I know this post has been kinda negative and “whiny” – yes, even someone like myself can get down a bit and think of all the ‘taking‘ this “beast” called Parkinson’s does to us. Sometimes it seems like our disease is moving so fast that it can overwhelm us – not just physically, but mentally and even spiritally! And there are times like today, when you just have to ‘Get it out of your system!’

You know, they say you “Can’t teach an old dog new tricks” – but my fretting about what PD has taken has actually reminded this “old dog” a couple of lessons: