Parkinson's and Exercise: Park Your Snark Here and Bike

I've got to do WHAT?

EXERCISE! 

First off, I hate to exercise and have always been a sit and read or draw kind of girl.  I was the girl in gym class who had her period for a month, to get out of learning how to dive off the diving board.  And the girl who hated vaulting so much that she would run up and slam into it rather than go over it.

But from the first time at the Neurologist to the second “Yes, you have Parkinson's” time, the topic of exercise and the need for it, for taming the Snark, has come up.

I think I better stop here for a moment and introduce Snarky.  Corrine came up with -Snarky PARKY- as a nickname for this new part of me. I find it fun to think about Parkinson's as a Snark. And any fun I can get out of this is golden.

Speaking of which, to keep smiling, I have taken to watching, with my son Brendon, a British game show series-” Would I lie to you.”  It's a very funny show on YouTube, try it, you might like it.

EXERCISE. The first time I saw her, the Dr. talked about how studies had been done on the help Parkinson's patients could get from exercising. Then she talked about a patient of hers, a young man with early onset Parkinson's. His symptoms got progressively worse the fastest she had ever seen- Until he started to aggressively bike. The exercise caused his brain to produce more levodopa. She said it was amazing.

Next, she told me about how Ballroom Dancing could help.  She told me about a man who decided not to take levodopa and instead did Ballroom dancing for 2 hours a day.  For many years, he was able to control his symptoms just with dancing. (I have 2 left feet.  But-Hey Corrine, guess what?  I am taking up ballroom dancing and biking.)

Exercise....Well I have to so I will. At the moment I am in Cardio rehab 3 Days a week. So, you can have a heart attack and do cardio rehab. Um, no. But the nurses are very nice to me and I have gotten a pattern of what machines I like-sort of. And what I don't like. The bikes. They have a torture horn in front.

At home, Steven had brought up from the basement an old stationary bike that we and the people who lived in our house for 50 years before us, had. It's seriously old. It wobbles and the peddles sort of make a clunking sound.  And the seat... is a numbing agent.  The great part is it has a book rack.

Steven went to the local bike shop to look for a more female friendly seat.  And brought back what looked to me like- the same seat but new. The owner swore it was much more comfortable. It wasn't.

We went on a bike seat hunt on the internet. (Hey google, I need a bike seat that doesn't cause my crotch to go numb. How do you describe that on the internet without starting to get weird advertising?)

The answer came by word of mouth. The first woman, I mentioned about looking for a comfortable seat for a stationary bike had a bike with a comfortable seat, she hadn't ended up using it and was willing to sell.  I saw it, I tried it, I liked it, I wanted it. Actually, it didn't fit me and so it wasn't comfortable yet. But the seat, the seat looked perfect (no horn) it even had a back rest! Steven came back with me and changed the height and the placement of the seat and AHHHH.  I am now a biker.  Take that Snark!

The dancing story, I'll save for another day.

Cheers,

Nancy and the Snark

Footnotes from Corrine: Exercise Hah! the most exercise I saw Nancy do in all the years we've been friends was climb the ladder to put the knitting on the Knit Knot Tree. 

Photo by Skip Peterson AP
in Ripley's Believe It or Not 2009 edition

Snarky snuck up on ya ducks, parked itself into yer body. I hope you dance and sing, and bike and swing and get so doped up you give snarky a good what for.