Oh, my!! Three years have passed since my last post....and Oh, so much has happened. We have moved to Washington state; the little town of Enumclaw, where we are near our daughter, Rachel and her family (grandchildren, Charlotte and Calvin and son-in-law, Robert).
Our son, Aaron and his wife Chrys live about 45 minutes away, and visit us often with their 50lb. puppy, 6 month old, Huxley.
We bought a double wide manufactured home in a lovely retirement community. Our house is older, but we have done a lot of remodeling and are very comfortable here. We ended up with more yard than we had planned on having, but it is beautiful, with trees, flowers, vegetable garden and lots of squirrels and birds. We have a gardening service that keeps the yard beautiful for us, so we can just enjoy the beauty and feed the birds and squirrels.
When we bought this place in 2010, we were delayed 6 months in moving in; because of our son Scott's accident we spent May-October in Virginia with him while he recovered enough to be moved across country to finish his recovery with us in Washington. (you can learn about his story on his website at http://www.sonnettics.com/?paged=3 ). Scott was with us for about 9 months; then returned to Virginia and has since married and they are expecting a baby in Novenber. While still in Utah, Don had a masive heart attack which resulted in a mitral valve replacement, a bypass, a pacemaker and many months of recovery. His Parkinson's has progressed to the point where he needs to be in a wheelchair or using a walker to prevent falls; he has had many falls that should have resulted in serious injury but he just seems to be blessed to have never suffered any serious consequences. Between medication for his Parkinson's and his heart condition, he is taking about 16 medications a day (divided into 6 doses/times). Don has had PD for 22 years now, and taking that into consideration, he is doing very well. He needs help dressing, showering and cutting his food; getting in and out of bed, medicine reminders and management, getting in and out of the car, walking up or down stairs, etc. He has had a recurrance of his back pain and will soon be getting injections to see if that will help; it has been eight years since his back surgery, so we feel blessed that he has been relatively pain free for that long. Don had surgery on his right eye for severe cataracts and still needs to have the left eye done, but is amazed at haw well he can see even now. Our latest news is that I (Carol) have been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease; it is very rare for a husband and wife to both have PD and since there is no history of PD in either of our families, we can only conclude that this is a huge coincidence or that there is something that both of us were exposed to in the environment. We are very interested in the research that is being done and are anxious to help with any studies that could benefit from our participation. Our neurologist took videos of Don and me at my last visit and was going to present our case at a Northwest Regional meeting of neurologists specializing in movement disorders (PD & MS). We will see what comes of that. Well, enough of bringing everyone up to date. I need/plan to continue this as our communication outlet for family, friends and other PD patients/caregivers who can benefit from our experiences.
