Season

From Wikipedia: "A hairpin turn (also hairpin bend, hairpin corner, etc.), named for its resemblance to a hairpin/bobby pin, is a bend in a road with a very acute inner angle, making it necessary for an oncoming vehicle to turn almost 180º to continue on the road. Hairpin turns are often built when a route climbs up or down a steep slope, so that it can travel mostly across the slope with only moderate steepness, and are often arrayed in a zigzag pattern."

Hairpin turns are not limited to bends in asphalt roads and mountain trails. Life often contains such turns, and they are almost always on the other side of a blind spot in the road. I recently encountered a set, one that I am still negotiating. As I find my elevation in life rapidly changing, I am in the midst of a series of brutal turns.

These are not the first hairpin turns that I have had to deal with. There are other sets of turns that have affected my life greatly. There have been adjustments in navigation and course corrections, but none compare to these unforeseen hairpin turns.

I was a dorky, uncoordinated kid, but once I learned to water ski, I became an athlete. I competed in water ski jumping for distance at the regional amateur level, as well as skiing for the nationally ranked Florida State University Water Ski Team. A jump crash in practice in 1980 put me in the hospital for 2 weeks. I didn't realize the significance of this until many years later.

In 1984, I was livin' large, snortin' and smokin' and sellin' long cocaine. In 1985, I found myself 3000 miles from home, alone, broke, and living in my van.

The athlete in me resurfaced as I became interested in hiking, backpacking, and rock climbing. I learned to snow ski and soon found myself skiing down double black diamonds at Kirkwood. In the summer, I would go on long mountain bike rides to the top of and all over Mt. Tamalpais, or Mt. Tam as it is known locally. Over the years, jump crashes, snow ski crashes (including one infamous yard sale at Alpine Meadows), bike crashes, and a car wreck (that was not my fault) all slowed me down. As I found my interest in music returning, I made a quick decision to purchase a set of drums. Playing drums was a fantastic, athletic, and aerobic endeavor. Six months after I started playing, I found myself filling in for another drummer in the Squire James Band at a packed Cafe Amsterdam in Fairfax. On a mid-week night in chilly January, people were dancing from song one to the final encore! Exhiliarating! To see all those dancers shaking their hips to my grooves!

I sold the mountain bike not too long ago. I keep my cross-bike (it's a cross between a mountain bike and a road bike) in the hopes that someday I may be able to ride again, although I know I'll not be riding to the top of Tam anymore. The skis are going next, and I pray to the goddess that I may continue to play drums. We have a session scheduled next month. This will be my percussion litmus test. Will I be able to play well enough? long enough? Will I be wasted for weeks following the jam? Will I be trading in the full kick set for congas? Will I be able to play at all?

As I find my elevation in life rapidly changing, I am in the midst of a series of brutal turns.

She said 'Parkinson's.'

About 2 years ago, something happened. I don't know exactly what it was, but it seemed to have coincided with that heinous heat wave, with temperatures over 100 for what seemed like an eternity. I was working in an air conditioned office that wasn't as cool as it sounds. The a/c doesn't work where I live, the landlord knew it and told me, but at $1100 per month, a steal in this area, I wasn't going to argue.

Strange sensations and uncontrollable leg shaking became a nightly experience. I couldn't tell you if my right leg shook for 30 seconds or 5 minutes, but I sure could tell it was on it's way. It would eventually pass, but at work the next day, I would find my left leg shaking almost all day long when sitting at my desk. After about a month of nightly leg shaking, about 3 months after I first noticed it, I finally went to see my physician. The medication he gave me stopped the nighttime shaking the first night, but the daytime shaking continued. Always one to walk up 1 or 2 flights of stairs before taking the elevator, I found climbing those 2 flights of stairs to the office becoming more difficult. If I neglected to take the medication, I would know it. I found myself needing to take it earlier and earlier. The dosage went up. A referral to a neurologist was next, followed by MRI's, blood tests, cognition tests, sleep tests.....

I had already been thinking about an extended leave of absence in 2006 before all this started. I was tired every day. I would be lucky just to be in bed for 7 hours a night. Eight hours of sleep a night? What a joke! Slowly, the number of hours I slept on Friday and Saturday nights crept higher and higher in order to make up for the deficiencies accumulated during the week. Chronic and constant aches, pains, and fatigue were the norm. The pains were sharp, deep, and usually in the same dozen or so locations. The aches were all over. The fatigue made me want to crawl back into bed. It is like having a nasty flu, every day, but with a hangover. Medical appointments and many sick days became routine in 2007, so much that I had used up almost all my sick time. Finally, I convinced my neurologist that all I needed was about 8 weeks of rest, with no major plans, no agenda, no new projects, and no missions to finish old projects. All that, and a disability checque, I figured, and I should be as good as new. I started the leave in mid-November of 2007 and 6 weeks into it, I was still feeling like shit. "This is not good", I thought. Even though the MRI showed a small handful of small grey spots, my neurologist would not say if, or that I 'had' anything. I'm sitting in her office looking at all the neurology posters on the walls reading the symptoms of MS, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Muscular Dystrophy, among others, saying to myself, "check, check, check..." as I went down the various lists, noting that many of these afflictions share several symptoms. I remember the despair I was feeling when I pointed to one of the posters, and stuttered, "B-b-u-t what about all these symptoms I'm experiencing??"

At the UCSF MS Center in San Francisco, I received a 2nd opinion. This doctor said she didn't think it was MS, and that these symptoms were more 'Parkinsonian.' A sleep test revealed I had been suffering from sleep apnea and hypopnea (not to be confused with hip-hop-nea.) A 2nd MRI about 6 months after the first one showed no furthur advancement of the grey areas. Yet the symptoms persisted, and worsened.

I went back to work in January of this year when I said I would, still feeling like shit just about every day. One more trip to the neuro's office and it was decided that I would be going on disability, permanent this time, for Parkinson's, and not Fibromyalgia, as I had been thinking during my time off.

I can't say that the heat wave of 2006 was the culprit, only that it was a significant event just before all this worsened. There had been sports injuries, substance abuse, and psychological trauma that may have contributed to this. There was the tingling in my left hand that was noticeable only in the colder winter months that started about the time I started my first sit-down, 8-hour-a-day, computer job. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome had been ruled out. That tingling has now spread to the whole left side of my body. The twitching has become much more noticeable, especially when I lay still.

April 2nd was my last day at work. I had been there for 5 years and 1 month. The longest I had spent at any previous job was 5 years and 3 months and so wanted this one to last longer. I'm not sure how much longer I will be able to play drums in the band, but I'm hoping that I won't have to give that up, too. Sold the mountain bike, the skis are going next. Needing a creative outlet, I started writing. I had been writing in an on-line baseball discussion group, when Matt O'Donnell read my posts and invited me to be a contributor to his Red Sox blog, "Fenway West." Perfect timing.

I spend most of my days at home now, never knowing how I will be feeling from one day to the next. It's next to impossible to make any plans. So I stay home and write.

The first step is always the hardest.

This one will ramble, I'm sure, but here goes nuthin'.

Yankee fans, uber-Christians, gun nuts, and republicans won't like it here. I'll be voicing my opinions on many topics, including many not listed in the sidebar. I'll be digging through my past scribblings, as well as various past internet discussion group posts, and may repost some here. I'll be bouncing back and forth between the past, present, and future. It's hard to say exactly what the whole point and purpose of this blog is, or what the format of what I do write will take. Personal diary? Song lyrics? Short stories and essays? Rants and Raves? (Sort of like craigslist, except that I call the shots here.) Whatever, it will be a work in progress.

It has been a long, strange trip. I emphasize strange, and I think my therapist will agree. There have been many joyous moments in my life, and I will try to recall as many as possible. There has also been much, much, pain as well. Again, I will be recalling as many incidents as I can, or at least be willing to recall and write of.

My life has taken an incredible turn in the past year, one of several, but this one was a hairpin. This direction was totally unthinkable when I was younger. This turn of events has given me the opportunity to be able to write, to think, to read, and to write. It will evolve, as life, culture, and civilization all do. Remember~ when life gives you a bowl full of lemons......

If not for The String Cheese Incident, The Grateful Dead (without whom, there would be no SCI), the NorCal_ETree discussion group*, The Red Sox, tribe.net, Matt O'Donnell and his "Fenway West" blog, this blog might not be. Many thanks to my parents for providing me with a half decent education and the ability to write coherently. (Now only if I had done my part of the education process, intead of.... Well, that's another post.)

Other folks huge in my life: my brothers Carlos, Paul, and Jay; Jim Savage, Dean Lopes, Bill Medieros, Joe Caron, Suzette Devol, chris dempsey, Christopher Robin, the Allman Brothers Band, Pink Floyd, the Squire James Band, Mark Gigliotti, Sean Horton, and Tom Dibell. Thanks to all, and to all I have inadvertently omitted, (and no thanks to some not mentioned, yet.)

And lastly, but probably most importantly, I must mention my daughter, Sierra. Parenthood is a tremendous challenge, one at which many fail. Circumstances as they may be, we are going through a difficult period, but I would not trade away one second of parenthood for anything. I read somewhere something to the effect of 'a good parent is one whose child will make the world a better place fifty years from now.' I like to think that I was one of those 'good parents.' Parenthood, as difficult as it may be, is what kept me from jumping off the proverbial bridge.

There are plenty of teases in this post, but rest assured, I will be adressing all those ambigous references I made somewhere down the line. Stay tuned.

*I am not going to mention the portal where this group is located. If you want to know, write me. Otherwise, they have the money for the product placement.

Let the postings begin.