Drop Bombs on School and Hospital: Mixed Messages from Two Decades with Parkinson's

By Bill Schmalfeldt

Nearly a decade ago, I put a cap on a narrative detailing my first decade as a person with Parkinson's disease from diagnosis to volunteering for experimental brain surgery, through enforced retirement. Reviewing what I wrote between 2007 and 2011, I must admit I found myself coming off as somewhat whiny, self-absorbed, and preachy. One could be forgiven for reading this book in its original form believing that I really did not think I would still be alive at this point, April 3, 2019 - eight years and two days after finishing the book, 7,003 days after being diagnosed on January 31, 2000.I was 45 years old then. I am 64 now. I see things differently, far less optimistic, far more cynical, but as sardonic as ever.I live in pain, but it is not agonizing. It is hard to walk, but I'm able to ambulate unassisted for short distances, with a cane for longer stretches. I'm stiff and slow, my balance stinks, and I find myself dealing with some minor cognitive challenges. However, I'm able to do the necessary day-to-day tasks without much difficulty. I no longer experience great joy or great sadness, neither exuberant nor depressed. I know I am loved but I don't really feel capable of fully expressing it. Since my diagnosis, I've been tasked with the eulogizing of my twin brother, my older brother and my older sister. I watched my mother take her last breath in 2013. I sat by my wife's side when she died in 2015.I'm edgy, irritable, easily-annoyed. I feel... depleted. Emotionally, I am neither in the basement or the penthouse. I'm on the mezzanine.As I wrapped up the first iteration of this book, I expected to slide into retirement, this book being my Opus Magnus on the subject of life with Parkinson's disease. I was wrong about so many things.I gave up my driver's license in 2009. Didn't need it. I was married to a good woman, a rugged gal who would take me anywhere I needed to go. Gail was 19 months older than me, but she was healthy and strong and caring. I would certainly die before she did. After all, she survived the abuse of her first husband. She lived through cervical cancer. A year after I finished this book, she was diagnosed with tonsillar cancer. She had surgery including lymph node dissection and was declared cancer-free in 2013.She followed her doctor's advice and lost weight, started eating better, taking better care of herself.We would grow old together. My condition would continue to deteriorate along the lines one would expect with a neurodegenerative disease such as Parkinson's. Gail would be there, strong, steady, sturdy.I was so. Very. Wrong.I intended the original edition of this book to be the telling of a hopeful tale. There may still be hope. After all, where's there's life, there's hope.I still believe that.More or less.ABOUT THE TITLEImagine sitting at the microphone at a radio base station. You send an order to a squadron of attack jets."DROP YOUR BOMBS ON THE MUNITIONS DUMP. BUT BE CAREFUL BECAUSE THERE IS A SCHOOL HOUSE AND A HOSPITAL WITHIN THE IMMEDIATE AREA."Because the message you sent is garbled in transmission, what the jet pilots hear is..."DROP... BOMBS ON... SCHOOL... AND... HOSPITAL."Tragedy ensues. In Parkinson's disease, for whatever reason, different parts of the brain react in different ways to this lack of dopamine. You can take a dopamine substitute, like a levodopa/carbidopa combination, that synthesizes into dopamine when it crosses the blood/brain barrier. But that only lasts for so long and after years of this treatment, your brain betrays you by accepting the dopamine replacement and causing you to twist and writhe uncontrollably with dyskinesia. You can electrically stimulate a part of the brain called the subthalamic nucleus to jam the erratic signal it gives out when it doesn't get the dopamine it wants. That smooths out your movement to a degree, relaxes the rigid muscles somewhat. But it's not a cure.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1092646205
• ISBN13: 9781092646208
• Release Date: April 2019
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"