The Record of Our Lives

Take care and watch yourselves closely so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children's children....Deuteronomy 4:9 This morning I woke up to a dreary day and really considered rolling over and going back to sleep when this voice came to me saying...."I was there for you, will you not be there for me?" and to that I jumped up and dressed for church and noticed I was functioning with no limp or pain. An hour later I was at my church of choice and looking through the free reading material in the foyer and picked out several for prayer help in the coming Lent season. I ventured into church feeling ex tactic, for some reason, just to be there. Three months ago I had my right hip replaced after almost ten years of increasing pain. Most doctors said I would have trouble healing because of my other ailments(Parkinson's, Epilepsy and RA) but I had no choice if I wanted to walk. I was primarily in a wheel chair and the pain was ten and above on all days. So all seemed to be going well until six weeks to the day after the surgery it slipped out and I was in a brace and pain once again. Needless to say, depression set in in a big way and I dropped out of sight. Had it not been for my lover and family and friends I may not have made it back. Friends came from all over, Facebook, Patientslikeme.com and my blogs to lend me moral support. I continued to ask God, "How could he possibly be setting me up for a new life and adventure in this condition?" I would pray and read my Bible daily and both assured me I was being lead just go with it, This morning, at church, the first thing I read was the passage from Deuteronomy and it all connected. Next I opened my email and found a email from : http://www.healthcaretechnicians.org/removing-the-mystery-top-49-blogs-about-parkinsons-disease/ Me writing a top 49 Parkinson blog......thank you, Lord. I had never been on the Internet before October of 2007 when I signed on to Patientslikeme.com. So now I am back and am happy to be so.......May we find a cure to these diseases and neurological disorders. We can only do that through speaking up and being heard. Love Pokie

Happy Purple Day

As most everyone that reads the things a write knows, I am a very proud grandmother of six. One I lost to Sids many years ago which left five to frolic and play at the farm in the summer and weekends. Maybe because of Kane and the Sids or maybe because of me and Epilepsy and Parkinson's, I spend a huge amount of time watching how they respond to different things around them. Even before they were born I was a storehouse of questions on movements, hiccups, kicking. I'm always looking for something I never want to see. I'm always studying my diseases and friends are always sending me articles on the subjects to keep me well informed for my blog writing. This is how I met Cassidy Megan who founded Purple Day for Epilepsy which gives everyone one day in the year to put on your purple and educate and be educated about Epilepsy. My favorite is young children, third or fourth grade. Epilepsy at any stage is extremely scary. You never know when a seizure is coming and when one comes you usually loose body functions which is totally embarrassing for young and old. but i think worse for the young because the young are so hard on each other and put up almost impossible hurdles for others to conquer in order to survive in their group. If your young and your worried , you have seizures and your different , then you stand out.....considered not good among children. On Purple Day Cassidy is a PEER factor instead of a FEAR factor. They become more educated and more tolerant...The myths are dispelled and the student with Epilepsy is given a chance to be seen in a normal light. March is Epilepsy month and somewhere in that month will be PURPLE DAY 2011, but don't wait. Plan a Purple Day and raise funds for research. Do something to help and include that child with Epilepsy in....It will make you smile inside. love ya Pokie

Luggage or Treasures

I'll tell you right off my symptoms are excellerated today and for what reason I do not know. I am taking my pd meds amd Epilepsy medication as directed, which is so odd for me and really feel lousy. I can attribute this to one thing, my brain is having problems processng all I am sending it's way. One travels life with so much excess baggage and it's contents will keep you from ever enjoying any of the special moments you incounter. Yet I am finding out your brain can also lead you to believe one thing when quite the opposite is true. How do you ever survive this way? How do you know when you are actually loved or is your brain just tell you this out of need? Maybe you think you have had enough of something and you haven't...this could keep you eating all your life. Tomorrow I am going to have to leave this very much behind or it will drive me crazy. This is one of those things, that when I pass, God will have to set down and explain to me. For one thing I feel no remorse for believing with all my heart and another for carrying it through my whole life but I am angry that I didn't realize it earlier. I know this seems like so much gibberish coming from a vey confussed mind but know this. This baggage might have been and still could be a Pandora's box or a place you go on a rainy day to play in a field of clover with the butterflys. Tears have a speial ingredent to heal. Heal what? Another thing I don't know...but it is an excellent way to fall a sleep and DREAM.....and PRAY. both of these I will do tonight and maybe, just maybe, tomorrow will come up clover and butterflys...love Pokie

How's your garden going?

When Joe Parkinson's came knocking at my door four years ago this is the thing he stole from me that hurt the worse.....my ability to put out and maintain a beautiful and weed free garden. There is not one thing about gardening i don't like except deer flies and deer ticks. Deer flies can be stopped with excessive bug spray and deer ticks can be detoured but not stop ed by long sleeves and long pants with duck tape wound with the sticky side out. You'd be surprised how many of these pests you can catch and dispose of this way except you could have died of heat stroke today with all that on since the heat factor was 108. I have passed my garden spot on to my son-in-law and his friend. Tonight they brought me cabbage and they are picking green beans, peppers and cucumbers. When the tomatoes come on in full force, the freezing and canning starts for the winter. All my kids and I have a deep freeze and I freeze more now than can. The weekend I will be going to my first class reunion. It not theirs but mine. The first I have attended in 45 years and my home town is in the boot hill of Missouri which is peach country this time of the year. So, on my way back , in request from my grand kids, I am to pick up "forking peaches", which is peaches in heavy syrup in a easy to hold on to container because you eat them while still frozen with a fork in little pieces. Gives you brain freeze every time but they love them. Joe thought he had really pulled something off when he made me exit the farm chores I have always loved so much but little did he know he can't take them away from me. on my last days the memories will still cause my eyes to twinkle and shin...love Pokie