Tossed the die to see what I would do after yoga.  Choices were Balthazar (ride), vacuum, paint the office, paint the painting, blog or write to my aunt.  It's amazing how tossing the die (or dice if you use two) always seems to make the best possible choice.  I read The Dice Man when I was in my early twenties and have used the dice ever since.  It ties in with Jung's synchronicity, with metaphysics, quantum mechanics and the Powers That Be (for want of a better description of the indescribable).  Writing something, anything, pulls me into myself, in a way that is somehow related to meditation and the creative act.  I've discovered something else about myself too.  When I load my brain with 'stuff', it acts as insulation so that I can't get close to or hear or sense the intrinsic truth of my being.  That sounds like a high falutin' esoteric fuzzy wuzzy sentence but it's true.  Feeding my brain junk gives out junk in return.  For instance, the Olympics finished last weekend.  We watched every day, caught up on the highlights in the morning and saw some of the live action before going to bed at night.  Naturally advertisers regarded the Olympics as a golden opportunity.  The same commercials were repeated ad  nauseum, along with the same jingles, phrases and visuals.  My brain was saturated with it.  How is it possible to think an original thought when the thoughts have been put there for me?  It isn't.

Being 56 I am on the tail end of the digitial revolution.  I tried to Facebook again and could not (thankfully.  I listened to my inner agitation and got off).  I don't use a mobile phone, I don't Twitter, I'm not sure what a MP3 is and have no idea what FLAC means.  Even so, in so many ways I have given my thoughts, given my brain away to those who will gladly fill it up with their thoughts, opinions and ideas (none of which are original).  There is much good which comes from our digitial interconnectedness but I think we also need to be aware of the dangers.  Heard on the news that our swimmers would have done better at the Olympics if they hadn't been using their social media so much.  Where the Chinese were spending X amount of hours in the pool we were spending only Y because we were too busy chatting or tweeting. 

I've written before that I have become more sensitive rather than less with age.  I donated money to Animals Australia and yesterday, to my surprise, I got my member pack.  I couldn't read the documentation inside because I knew once I had those images in my head I would never be rid of them.  Watched Cops a few weeks ago and lay awake feeling dreadfully sorry for these people on crystal meth and heroin.  Entire families caught up in tragedies of alcohol, drugs and violence.   Last night watched Explore where Simon Reeve explores the Philippines, especially Manila where 60% of the population live below the poverty line.  So much so that people have lived for years in cemetary mausoleums.  20 million people in Manila and more coming in every day.  Breeding like rabbits because it's a poor third world CATHOLIC country.  So I lay awake, again.  I understand why people go and live on mountaintops.  The life of a recluse, sans all electronic media becomes more and more attractive. 

I understand now why when I start doing yoga there is this feeling of relief.  It's become a refuge.  While I do yoga I can only do yoga.  My mind is still busy but  if I really concentrate on my breath, I am so much more there.  And being there means I am closer to the Truth of the Eternal Now and less burdened with Stuff. 

Dreams:  Driving through a central Michigan countryside.  Pass a two story white farmhouse with teenage boys milling around outside.  See the head of a blue cattle dog lying on the dirt.  Just the head.  Its eyes watch me as I pass.  There is also a green and yellow budgie the size of a pigeon rolling drunkenly in a ditch and an equally inebriated rabbit.  A small boy picks up the rabbit and flings it in the grass.  I don't like the look of the boys but I like less the look of everything else.  I stop the car and engage a black haired boy about fifteen in conversation.  Tell him I am worried about the appearance of the bird and the rabbit but say nothing about the dog.  In the meantime the others have built a small mound out of dirt and placed the dog's head on that.  It still watches the proceedings with a calm and interested air.  Does the farmer use pesticides, I ask.   If he does and it has had such a serious effect on these animals it may be affecting you too.  I urge him to call his local vet.  The dog bothers me.  Why is it still alive.  Why has it been beheaded.  The boy is polite and articulate but beneath the surface something unsavoury watches.

I am at a bbq or outdoor party.  Again it is central Michigan.  Birds fly squawking overhead.  I lean back and watch.  The mixed flock of birds circle and wheel overhead.  I don't know why they don't fly elsewhere.  Then I see a large white bird like a gannet catch a small sparrow in its beak.  The sparrow's head pokes out of the beak.  I can see the moist blackness of its eye.  I am sick with sorrow.  Always death.

Walking along a dirt road with Nicki.  Yesterday (in real life) I heard a male neighbour screaming, using an obscenity.  Don't know whether he screamed at his wife, children or the animals.  It bothered me as it was a sentence, unintelligible as most of it was, of pure rage.  His children and his wife and the animals were all a witness.  Nicki walks and lays her hand on my shoulder as she talks.  It lays there very heavy.  I wish she would remove it.  The screaming man's wife comes to me.  She is upset with her husband.  She is emotionally fragile after giving birth.  The husband is contrite.  We are all in the back seat of a car.  A very pale, almost ghostly young woman gets in with us.  The wife has hysterics.  She is frightened of the woman's whiter than white skin.  There is something uncanny about it but the woman is very much alive, very much flesh and blood.  The wife insists on leaving.  She is inconsolable.  I do my best to calm her down.  She leaves the phone off the hook.  I hear a tinny voice later and realise it's her husband.  It's all too messy.  Something about diving underwater too, unfortunately in the time it has taken me to type the above the memory of it has gone. 

Parkinson's Disease.  There.  I've hardly dared think the words, much less write them.  Writing them makes it real somehow and I don't want it to be real. 

I suspect Richard has PD.  Haven't spoken to anyone about it, not even him.  But I have to talk to someone and the journal has always been my confidante of choice.  Worried about putting such a private matter in the public domain but as no one reads my blog it is as private as the many written journals lying about the house. 

Talking to Richard about it is, at this point, not happening.  The closest I've come is to say we'll buy more fish oil and eat more legumes as that is good for the dopamine in his brain and that is good to help allay the tremors.  Interestingly Richard didn't question.  He changed the subject.  He knows something is wrong and is as reluctant as I to bring it out in the open.  But we must I'm afraid.  The symptoms which seem to have come on suddenly are classic PD.  There is no clear cut test for PD, perhaps the closest being if the symptoms are alleviated by medication, but the symptoms do tell a clear story.  I noticed the tremors last year.  At rest his head, hand and leg shake.  Once they are put into use, once the muscle is actively engaged, the tremor disappears.  When he is completely relaxed, as in asleep, I don't notice them either.  Richard often dozes off on the couch.  His head drops to his chest and perhaps the heaviness of the weight negates the possibility of a tremor.  There are other signs however.  Shuffling.  He shuffles his feet.  This is a fairly new occurrence, becoming apparent in the past 6 to 8 months.  One thing he hasn't done for a very long time is swing his arms when he walks.  I remember chiding him about it a couple of years ago.  Has he always walked like that or is it too another symptom?   I have also noticed his increasing difficulty with small things; buttoning a shirt, doing up a zipper, putting the collar on Jamaica.  He is also getting forgetful, leaving the water on in the trough, leaving gates open, forgetting peoples names or the names of objects.  Of course we all forget things but it is more common with Richard than it used to be.  He also has more difficulyt getting out of a chair.  That could just be attributed to age but it is, unfortunately, yet another symptom of PD. 

I'm not sure what to do.  He is my best friend as well as my husband.  Anything he finds uncomfortable he avoids, as we all do I suppose.  Subjects that are difficult are not spoken of.  Or if I insist that we talk, he gets angry.  If I push he'll cave and it can be discussed and usually solved.  But this is different.  This is his health. And it can't be solved.  He has been proud of reaching 65 without being on medication for high blood pressure or cholesterol or any of the other things people of his age normally take.  He's put on 20 pounds since we quit smoking three months ago.  I know he has pain in his hip joints but after I said something about the almost nightly huge bowls of ice cream, the handfuls of salted peanuts and the weight gain he is starting to walk more again.  He was averaging two times a week (the 6km walk) which was just enough to keep him sore without making him fit.  Now he is going (at least this past week) every other day which is brilliant.  Continuous exercise is another arrow in our sling of things to do to keep PD under control. 

If that is what he has.  The thing to do is sit him down I guess, put forward everything I've noticed and ask him what he wants to do.  Does he want to see a neurologist or motor specialist to have my suspicions confirmed or just go on as we are?  If there comes a point where his life is being impacted by the symptoms we can act then.  Perhaps that's the best option.  For today and next week and next month he can still do all that he has done before, just a bit slower.

Another reason, and a very good one, for not discussing my suspicions with Richard is his propensity to become overly anxious and depressed about things he cannot control.  This, I've read, can be a side effect of the disease, but it can also arise when being diagnosed.  Richard fixates on things and goes into an emotional tailspin with little provocation.   Being told you could have Parkinson's Disease would be an enormous blow.  Do I really want to take that risk?  No, now that I've written all this out (thanks again, Journal, for being such a good sounding board) I think the best plan at this time is to get him on the good food and supplements, most of which he is already on as we eat extremely well already, to keep him exercising if I can without alienating him, get him to yoga (he says he'll go but he hasn't made a move yet), to keep out of his way while he struggles with the buttoning and zippering and other vexing tasks and be there in any other way.

If and when we reach a point where he is unable to do the things he normally does or he complains about the symptoms then we'll talk about it and decide what to do.  

I was looking forward to taking a yoga retreat (as a reward of quitting the smokes) in September.  I still might go but if I do I think it will be the last time I will leave him to cope on his own.  Perhaps that's why I should take that little break away.