My dad won't mind if I tell that he's 79. He also won't mind if I share that he has Parkinson's disease, has had for about nine years now. Every morning is a new trial for him as he struggles to get the lead out of his feet. He says he has wooden legs. By afternoon, he's usually feeling pretty good and downright bored from being stuck in a chair all morning. This week he's been working on a pile of logs I've piled up here at Rivergarth for about ten years. He's cutting them down to size for the woodstove with his electric chainsaw. Scary as hell for me, but until he loses a toe or a leg, he's sure not going to listen to anybody tell him he shouldn't be.
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I can only imagine what they'll say to me in the emergency room as I try to explain that my aged father with Parkinson's was chopping logs with a chainsaw when he cut through his shoes, toe and all, and I let him do it! Gah!!! What is worse is that actually happened to my husband once, and I had to drive him to the emergency room for stitches to save his bloody toe! Is it any wonder women think men are rather dense in general?
4 comments:
:shakes head:
I don't know how they do it.
Hi, Red. I think I agree with you if you mean...don't know how they function...or if you mean...don't know how they even survive from one day to the next.
Well, I'm thinking of someone I know on my job who is in his 70s and he puts guys half his age to shame with how he operates at ridiculous speed all day long.
Ah, I see! Well, my dad has been a hard worker his whole life, at home and on the job. It's only this darn Parkinson's that has slowed him down.
What frustrates me (and is really a tragedy) is that there is promising stem cell research for Parkinson's, some things just now coming to clinical trials that might have benefited my dad years ago if there hadn't been a ban on it.
It's such a shame that the retirement he worked for so hard and anticipated so long was afflicted by this disease.
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