YOPD

Elizabeth Warren was the best candidate running and sexism/misogyny was why she lost

2020-03-05T11:55:00.001-08:00

Sen Warren: ”If you say, 'Yeah, there was sexism in this race,' everyone says, 'whiner.' And if you say, 'No, there was no sexism,' about a bazillion women think, 'What planet do you live on?' I promise you this: I'll have a lot more to say on that subject later on." pic.twitter.com/VkRA8js6ze
— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) March 5, 2020

A long time since I last posted here. And no, i don't have the Coronavirus

2020-02-25T11:42:00.001-08:00

Coronavirus vs SARS/MERS/Ebola/Swine Flu 😬 pic.twitter.com/iRmeV0kWoI
— Dave Jones 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏳️‍🌈 (@WelshGasDoc) February 25, 2020

TV coming not soon enough

2017-08-04T15:05:00.002-07:00

The old world is dead. It's time to create a new one.

season_3.0. #MrRobot. 10.11. @USA_Network. pic.twitter.com/abr7zEEWiK
— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) August 4, 2017

Healthcare and Some Videos

2017-07-28T16:49:00.000-07:00

I haven't written in a while, but these videos are so good, I want to hang on to them and watch over and over again.

"You can actually pinpoint the second when his heart rips in half." pic.twitter.com/nDOlZq1mZk
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) July 28, 2017

And fine, here it is with the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme music: pic.twitter.com/V1y1hWxO7T
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) July 28, 2017

BAH GAWD THAT'S STEVE AUSTIN'S MUSIC pic.twitter.com/vfTwNAC9F3
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) July 28, 2017

Link in the comments for any others I should add.

Hillary Clinton does not have Parkinson's Disease

2016-09-13T15:35:00.000-07:00

I am going out on a limb and stating this. Hell, there's probably more evidence that Bill has Parkinson-like symptoms, but not being a neurologist and having spent no time one-on-one with President Clinton, no one but his doctor would know, including myself.

And that is the reason that I can state Hillary Clinton does not have Parkinson's Disease. Parkinson's is a very individualized disease with many symptoms that may or may not be related. Most folks with the disease are actually misdiagnosed for anywhere from months to years after first symptoms appear. I took two years (symptoms at 32, dxd at 34) and I've heard some patients who took 5-10 years (usually, they were young onset, like myself). So, trying to use symptoms to diagnose someone is ridiculous in and of itself. Also, there is a particular series of tests/movements a neurologist goes through to diagnose someone and differences are usually subtle and often require hands-on the patient to perform. So to say that you know someone has PD because of one or two Parkinson-like symptoms is absolutely ridiculous.

On the other hand, even if she had PD, who cares. She is very active, like anyone running for President and that is considered the best way to fight the disease. I know folks who have had the disease and run multiple marathons every year. For example John Ball, a Vietnam Vet who wrote, Living Well, Running Hard has had PD since the 80s and still runs the LA Marathon most years. My wife and I befriended a woman who has had PD since the 90s and is on pace to run about 50 marathons this year and will hopefully make the Runner's World cover for December. You would not call either of these folks feeble or weak, and I wouldn't call Hillary Clinton that either.

DBS Progress Report

2015-05-06T14:09:00.000-07:00

I've officially been off most of my PD meds for over a week now. Last week, the nurse who does the programming of my system, increased the voltages in my left side (right brain) and I was able to walk normally, with no meds. I'm still noticing some occasional tremor, like while I'm typing, but I have had no meds for over a week. I will continue to play with my voltages and meds to see if I can improve my symptoms some more, but is already having a dramatic effect.

Some improvements besides reduction in meds:

Walking - This is probably one of the most dramatic improvements. I am walking relatively normally and even run as well.
Sleeping - This actually ranks up with walking. I have been sleeping 7-8 hours straight through for the first time in years.
Bathroom urgency - Related to the sleeping, I can hold my bladder better and can sleep through the night as well.
Speech - While occasionally slurred when I'm tired, I and others have notice a less staccato method of talking and thoughts float off my tongue more clearly.
Tremor and dexterity - little or no off time.
Dyskinesia - gone when I don't take meds.

To put it bluntly, my surgery is working even better than I hoped. Here's to it continuing.

It's been a while, but I had brain surgery and it worked!

2015-04-08T12:32:00.000-07:00

I had brain surgery again, just over two weeks ago. I was released from the hospital the day after surgery and here's the shot my wife posted to Facebook, with the caption, "Who had brain surgery yesterday and was already released today? This guy!"

They turned my leads on the following week, and to say there is a difference between now and then would be understating the case by orders of magnitude. I am so happy with how the new leads are working after just the first programming session. My walking has improved, my tremor has reduced, and my med intake has dropped by over half. Right after programming, I took an extended walk with friends to a bar in downtown San Francisco. I was doing great, until my meds kicked in and my dyskinesia went crazy, that was when I realized, I would need to dramatically reduce my meds. I am still figuring the med levels and times that work well for me; however, I am doing well and feeling better than ever.

Thanks for all the well wishes over the past two years since I began looking at having my first surgery. I don't wish my experiences of a stroke, heart attack and finding the leads had moved to finding a new surgeon and having the new leads installed on anyone, but hope others can find solace in my experiences and know that there is good news, eventually.

Net Neutrality, Why you should care.

2014-11-12T13:46:00.002-08:00

Since Obama has come out in favor of Net Neutrality, I guess it was inevitable that some folks would be against it. For those folks, get your head out of your ass.

You really want to trust AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner, etc. to do the right thing and keep the internet equal for everyone. These are the same companies that cause citizens of the USA to have the highest cable, cell phone and internet costs of any industrialized country and yet our internet speed choices are lower. These are the companies that fought and "encouraged" legislatures across to US to deny small communities the ability to offer their own citizens free wifi. Just to put it in perspective, here are a some statistics from 2012:

Americans pay four times as much as the French for an Internet triple-play package—phone, cable TV and Internet—at an average of $160 per month versus $38 per month.

The French get global free calling and worldwide live television. Their Internet is also 10 times faster at downloading information and 20 times faster uploading it.

America has gone from #1 in Internet speed (when we invented it) to 29th in the world and falling.

Bulgaria is among the countries with faster Internet service.

Americans pay 38 times as much as the Japanese for Internet data.

Now, how does this relate to Net Neutrality? The reason these companies want to eliminate Net Neutrality is that they can then set up tiered internet service. Therefore, if you're on a Comcast pipe, good luck getting Netflix or Amazon Prime movies at any speed worth a damn. But that's the least of it. Walmart.com can now pay Comcast to basically slow down service to it's competitors or at least create a noticeable difference between loading Walmart.com and Amazon.com, that if you want to shop online, you'll basically have to figure out which companies have paid the pipe(r). You'll be choosing your internet provider, not only by how good their customer service and network is, but by which companies are paying for faster access to their network.

This also puts US companies at risk, because they will be behind an artificial wall that slows down their service. No small start-up is going to be able to pay for top tier prices so internet start-ups will have a significant advantage if their hosted outside the US. Less innovation will happen in the US compared to rest of the world, and we will lose jobs as well as opportunities.

But go ahead and be against Net Neutrality, just because Obama is for it.

Parkinson's since 2006, Brain Surgery & Stroke 8/13, Heart Attack 2/14, Triathlete Yesterday

2014-10-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

This is what my wife wrote yesterday:

In August 2013 my husband had brain surgery and then suffered a stroke afterwards. Recovered. In February 2014 he had a heart attack. Recovered. Still battling Parkinson's Disease. And today now he became a triathlete for the first time. So proud, so amazed, so inspired!

I had a great time and this will definitely not be my last. I hit my goals of finishing and my time was about what I expected. This was the 40th annual Mission Bay Triathlon in San Diego, the first triathlon ever. The race was a lot of fun, although the swim entry is crazy and not for the light of heart. My friend who raced with me and myself hung back a bit during the start, so we wouldn't get hit or kicked.

I'm not going to do a whole race recap. I just want to emphasize that if I can do this with my medical history, especially this past year, you can as well. Get up and start moving.

Parkinson's Vaccine: What does it mean for those with PD and those who will eventually get PD

2014-08-11T09:01:00.002-07:00

The Parkinson's vaccine that has been developed in Austria by biotech company AFFiRis AG has recently gotten a lot of news. They announced positive results of a phase one safety study for a vaccine that could slow or even stop the progression of Parkinson's.

While this is great news, the unfortunate thing is also stated in that first paragraph as well, where it states the vaccine may only:

slow or even stop the progression of Parkinson's

I actually talked to my neurologist about the vaccine and while it will aid new patients who are diagnosed with Parkinson's and may also point to an indicator that can be tested before symptoms begin to appear, the protein alpha-synuclein, this will not reverse the effects of Parkinson's disease, because those cells are already dead and clearing the alpha-synuclein that had a part in their death will not bring them back.

Therefore, for the millions with Parkinson's Disease, we still require a methodology for replacing the dopamine those cells used to produce, via medication/DBS, or the actual cells themselves, via stem cells, gene manipulation or some method someone has not yet thought up. I don't want to be a downer, this vaccine is great news if it really works; however, for those of us already living with the disease have even further to go.

Also, remember, I am just a patient so take what I say with a grain of salt and discuss it with your doctor.

Surgery delayed

2014-08-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

I am currently on anti-platelet medication since I had my heart attack and stent placement in February. My cardiologist told my neurosurgeon that he wanted me to stay on the drugs, continously, for at least a year. Thus, my neurosurgeon recommended we wait until next year to do the follow-up surgery to fix my DBS. Until then, I have it turned off and will basically be taking a my medication and hoping my progression doesn't happen too quickly.

I also saw my neurologist and she asked me what my goals were for the surgery so that she could go over them with the surgeon and make sure I was being realistic. I basically have three main goals:

Get rid of the dyskinesia that has been increasing as I take more and more medication.
Get rid of the tremor during off times.
Reduce my total medication intake.

Some might be surprised to see the gait improvements not on there; however, I've been learning over the past year that DBS does not really provide gait improvement. Yet, by needing less medication over the day, I will have more on-time and therefore will have more time with better gait.

While I hate having to wait 6-8 months for the surgery (my insurance company had already approved the surgery before they had contacted my cardiologist), I know it is the best decision and we want to minimize risks as much as possible.

In the mean time, I am now training for the Mission Bay Triathlon in October and will be able to complete the race since I will not be having surgery before the date of the race. You can track some of my training progress over in the sidebar, where I will be posting my training runs, bikes and swims to daily mile.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more

2014-07-30T12:36:00.000-07:00

My neurosurgeon confirmed that the leads have moved up 10 mm from the location they had placed them. His scheduling person is contacting my cardiologist to get clearance for me to have another surgery. Once I am cleared, the neurosurgeon and neurologist will go back into my head and try to figure out why the leads moved.

My surgeon said that there will be three possible solutions he will try, in this order:

Put the current leads that are in my head back into place by just moving them back down the 10 mm. He feels this will be the least risky/invasive. After they are in place they will assess that I am still getting good results from the leads when they are placed correctly.
Remove the current leads and replace them with new ones. Since they know I had good results during surgery and the first month after (lesion effect), he feels replacing the lead to a known location would be the second best option.
Remove the current leads and place new leads in a different target region of the brain. Currently, the leads are supposed to be located in the GPI region of the brain. The surgeon would place the new leads in the STN region which is more susceptible to cognitive issue complications, which is one of the reasons my surgeon placed the original leads in the GPI region.

He is also planning to check the locking mechanisms that are used (he said there are three) to see if a failure in part or whole of one or more of the locks may have caused the leads to move. He also said, he may use a small metal piece to hold the leads down even better during the next surgery.

While I am hesitant to have another surgery after having suffered a stroke the first time, I cannot continue to live like this. I struggle every morning and most evenings before bed to just walk to/from my bed. I struggle to get to the bathroom in time before I have to go. I get frustrated with myself as well as the kids, the dog and my wife when my meds are off and they want me to hurry or move. When my meds are off, I get so tired just trying to do everyday activities, but it is also a struggle to sleep, because every way I turn is uncomfortable and I struggle just to turn. Finally, I am taking so many meds, that I worry that the meds will soon enough start causing really bad side effects. The fact that I can live and work on the amount of medication that I am currently taking is incredible.

So, wish me luck and I'll keep posting before and after surgery to update folks on my progress.

Good News/Bad News

2014-07-18T10:15:00.002-07:00

As many people who read my blog know, I've been struggling with the programming of my DBS for the past 10-11 months. After I had the surgery, I had what is known as a lesion effect. Basically, my tremor went away completely even when the leads were not powered on. This lasted about a month or two, and then the tremor came back with a vengeance. It has not really gotten better since and none of the settings we've tried have seemed to work. My walking still stinks and I'm either taking the same amount or more of my Parkinson's medications.

Back in May, my neurologist had me do a CT-Scan to check the lead placement. Well, the neurologist who was in surgery with me and who was performing my most recent programming called yesterday to inform me that my neurosurgeon had examined the CT-Scan and compared it to the scan I had after surgery when they were diagnosing my stroke. It looks like the leads of the electrodes have moved, possibly on the order of 10 mm. While that might not seem like a lot, in brain surgery terms is huge. It basically moved the leads out of position that could help me and explains why my DBS is not working the way I and my doctors would like.

What this means for me, I'm not sure. Since my heart attack in February, I have been on blood thinners. So, surgery for me is riskier, because I have to discontinue taking that medication probably for a few weeks before they can schedule a new procedure. Also, if they can put the leads back where they are supposed to go, will it take a completely new procedure or can they do it without opening my brain, and with a tremor starting to appear in my left side, is that the right decision anyway?

I'm supposed to meet with my neurosurgeon next week. Once we meet, my wife and I will discuss my options. It is scary and exciting. I want the DBS to work, but we will have to wait and see what happens.

Sleep Data over past month

2014-05-01T11:19:00.002-07:00

I bought an Jawbone UP24 and am starting to graph my results using tictrac.com. Below you can see my sleep over the past month and how it is actually trending up. I believe this is due to the fact that I'm actually measuring it. Nevertheless, I am sleeping more, which is good. The top line is deep sleep, the middle line is light sleep and the lower line is awake time, which includes my nearly daily middle of the night wake-ups. If you have Parkinson's you understand.

Promising Drug Therapy for Parkinson's won't be Researched, yet

2014-03-18T13:48:00.000-07:00

What if I told you there was a drug that could cause the Mean total score on the motor Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) to improve significantly from 33.1 at baseline to 23.2 after usage and the analysis of specific motor symptoms revealed significant improvement after treatment in tremor, rigidity, and bradykinesia.

If you were a Parkinson's Patient, you might say, sign me up and if you were a doctor, where's my prescription pad. However, if you're the US government, you'd be saying no, no, no. Why? because while an initial study done in Israel showed these results, the title of the study was, "Cannabis (medical marijuana) treatment for motor and non-motor symptoms of Parkinson disease: an open-label observational study." This research is thus nearly impossible to undertake in the US because, federal rules state that experiments can use marijuana only from a single, government-run farm in Mississippi. Researchers say the agency that oversees the farm, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, has long been hostile to proposals aimed at examining possible benefits of the drug.

In the last 10 years, the government had approved just one U.S. research center to conduct clinical trials involving marijuana use for medical purposes — a UC San Diego facility created by the California Legislature. However, on Friday:

the Obama administration handed backers of medical marijuana a significant victory Friday, opening the way for a University of Arizona researcher to examine whether pot can help veterans cope with post-traumatic stress, a move that could lead to broader studies into potential benefits of the drug.

This is the start and while I don't believe that Marijuana will be the wonder drug some people think it is. It will be scientific research that proves or disproves that theory, not some anti-drug politician who still believes that evolution is only a Theory.

Don't make light of your symptoms

2014-02-04T15:09:00.000-08:00

So, I was throwing up Sunday morning around 1:00 am, which I figured was my monthly gag fest due to Parkinson's Medications. I threw up a bit, but my chest was also hurting. I didn't take much thought in this, because I was throwing up at the time, but the chest pain continued throughout the night. When my wife woke up around 6:00 am, I told her of both the vomiting and chest pains and she insisted that we go see a doctor. This is a normal fight between us, as when I was first having PD symptoms, I didn't want to go and when she first had back problems, she didn't want to go and see her doctor. Nevertheless, I knew better and insisted that we go to the nearby urgent care facility instead of an emergency room or calling 911.

We arrived at Urgent Care at 8:00 am when they opened and I was third in line. Because I was complaining of chest pain, they took me right away (ahead of the second person) and took blood and ran an EKG. I told my wife to take the kids to Sunday school and after I was done, I'd get a cab to take me home the 1-2 miles. Needless to say, I didn't go home. The EKG read normal but the blood test showed an elevated level for one of the heart enzymes, specifically my Troponin level measured 0.33 which was higher than the acceptable level of 0.10. Because of this, the urgent care doctor called the local hospital and had me admitted and sent there via ambulance. In the mean time, I had called my wife to let her know I was being hospitalized and where I would be. She took the kids out of Sunday school and met me there as the ambulance arrived.

Unfortunately, do to flu season, the hospital would not let kids under 14 into the patient rooms. Therefore, a friend sat with them as we began to talk to the cardiologist on call for Superbowl Sunday. They observed me for a few hours and then retook my blood test after eight hours later. Everyone expected my levels to drop or stay the same because both a subsequent EKG and a ECHO cardiogram the doctor did with a handheld device showed no sign of any problem with my heart. However, the Troponin levels actually had a 10x increase to 3.9 from the previous level of 0.33. We were all very confused. They scheduled me for an angiogram the next day which is the gold standard test to see if there are any problems and told me it would occur probably around 11:30 am. The angiogram did not occur until about 4:30 pm Monday afternoon. However, it showed a nearly 100% blockage in my circumflex artery which they immediately cleared and placed a stent in it's place to prevent further blockages.

So, yes, I did have a heart attack at age 42. Luckily, it was the circumflex artery and not another. Also, the EKG and ECHO tests showed no real damage occurred to my heart. Therefore, once again we were very lucky. I was given an additional 3 medications to use at least for the next year as well as baby aspirin. I am also not going to be racing in the LA Marathon next month for Team-Parkinson, but will look into another race this summer. I was released from the hospital today, but will see my cardiologist in the next couple of weeks to do a stress test and discuss with him my future options. Also, with the new medications (particularly the aspirin and additional blood thinner) I probably will not have an opportunity to discuss making my Deep Brain Stimulator bi-lateral.

Take care, and I hope if you get anything out of my experience, don't take new symptoms or feelings or pain lightly. If your gut tells you there seems to be something wrong, go with it, because there just may be something wrong.

I should pay my plumber more than my neurosurgeon

2013-12-12T23:22:00.001-08:00

Yumabev made a joke about one of my posts on twitter, that I've been mulling over for a few days.

@yopd1 I know what u mean, my DBS surgeon got paid $1500 for drilling holes in my head & my neighbor paid $2500 for a plumber to fix a leak
— Parkinson's Humor (@YumaBev) December 9, 2013

After a few days, I realized, no shit, her plumber should be making more. You see, when you get a bill from the hospital, it is usually includes everything, including that $20 aspirin that they charged you 5 times for, but you only took once. But I digress.

Included in that bill is the amount that the neurosurgeon is paid for the 5 hours of surgery that he performed on my head. However, the neurosurgeon is only being paid for his time. He didn't bring in a scalpel, anesthesia, gloves, gowns, let alone the actual device that was implanted in my head.

When you pay your plumber, you are paying for everything, including all of his overhead and expenses. The better question is after the plumber paid for vehicle expenses to get to your home, parts, a staff at the office to take your appointment, all the inventory he/she has to carry, let alone all the specialized equipment he/she had to buy and maintain, what is he taking home at the end of the day and what is the neurosurgeon. I'd say the neurosurgeon is taking home an amount much closer than to $1500 than the plumber is, let alone the $2500.

Why Are American Health Care Costs So High?

2013-12-12T23:08:00.002-08:00

Best explanation I've seen of the problem with healthcare in the US. EVERYTHING is overpriced and costs to much and there is no sense in why things are charged except to screw over the patients and get as much money out of them as possible. Most interesting fact: We spend more on government provided healthcare in the US per capita than any other nation, but don't provide everyone with healthcare.

How is anyone supposed to make sense of health care costs?

2013-12-08T09:40:00.001-08:00

I got my bill for the hospital stay when I had my DBS electrodes installed. Granted this did not include my stay at rehab due to my stroke or my subsequent outpatient surgery for the pulse generator. What pisses me off, confuses me and/or frustrates me is the nonsensical billing system we have in the US.

Without giving exact numbers, the hospital billed my insurance company approximately $171k for my surgery and stays. The insurance company paid just about $24k of that. There is also a line that states adjustments for approximately $146k. If you look up hospital adjustment online it states,

“Adjustment” refers to the portion of your bill that your hospital or doctor has agreed not to charge you.

Now, I understand that insurance companies get discounts for bringing in large populations of folks. However, my insurance company paid basically 15% of what the hospital charged. I wonder how many folks without insurance or with worse insurance than mine could possibly get the hospital even close to that value.

The fact that most people probably don't know this is even more incredible. When I hear of doctors not wanting to take ACA or medicaid/medi-cal or some other non-premium insurance, I just have to laugh, because the premium insurance companies are definitely not paying full price, let alone wholesale prices.

UPDATE: Another issue with this is the way co-pays are calculated. Luckily, my insurance is a flat fee co-pay for a hospital stay. However, if I had a percentage based co-pay, my co-pay would have been calculated based upon the original hospital bill of $171k. Therefore, I would have been liable for 10-20% of that bill up to my out of pocket maximum, while the insurance company knew it would be paying the lower fee.

Either the insurance company is paying less than even $24k for the surgery if my co-pay is calculated based upon a percentage of the $171k. Or the hospital is getting more money because they can take the $24k the insurance company agreed to plus my co-pay. Either way, there is no incentive for either the hospital or the insurance company to bill the patient correctly and the patient gets screwed. The higher the hospital makes the bill, no matter what they've negotiated with the insurance company, the more money comes out of the patients pocket while the insurance company possibly reduces what they are paying the hospital or the hospital brings in more money and the patient gets screwed.

Conservative 'logic' on Obamacare

2013-11-25T21:15:00.001-08:00

A relative has been going off on facebook for weeks/months about Obamacare. I've stopped engaging because he is always changing the subject and is so over the top that I just got tired of it. However, I'd really like to understand the logic, if there is any. So, based upon his posts, this is what I understand is his thinking.

The fact that people under 27 have an option for lower price insurance under their parents plan is bad, but the fact that they don't buy insurance when they are young was okay because they shouldn't have to buy it and their irresponsibility is their problem, even though those of us who bought insurance were covering those who didn't in the past because they would usually skate on the bills when something did happen. You are also okay with the fact that if young people waited to buy insurance, they would not be able to after the fact because of the no-pre-existing conditions clauses or they often were buying cheap insurance policies that would drop them at the hint of filing a claim because of some technicality the insurance carrier found or they'd often reach their lifetime max just when they'd need their insurance the most.

The biggest issue to worry about with respect to access to insurance is that a website doesn't work from the get go, even though folks have three months to sign up and statistics have shown that historically younger people wait until the last few weeks to sign up. And the costs are way too high, even though the CBO, a non-partisan entity, has shown that the ACA will actually reduce deficits. And the fact that most of the dropped policies are irrelevant to the 90% or greater that do not buy insurance on the individual market and 75% of those who buy on the individual market are eligible for subsidies does not matter because one anecdotal story or even 100 anecdotal stories are more important than the millions who have already seen the benefits of the ACA even if they are one of those anecdotes.

Am I missing anything?

Why I will never buy a Kenmore appliance or any other appliance from Sears again

2013-11-14T08:31:00.000-08:00

We bought our Kenmore dishwasher in 2010. It has now broken for the fourth time. The interesting thing is, the same part keeps failing; however, Sears still wants to charge me for my fourth Control Panel to install myself.

When it broke the first time (13 months after we bought it, one month after the warranty ran out) in December 2011, we had an appliance repairman, whom I found on yelp.com, come out and fix it because he charged $35 for the visit plus parts, while Sears wanted much more. The other thing the repairman did was show me what he was doing so I could fix it myself if I had too. I have degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science, so I am able to understand how to fix appliances when shown.

Low and behold, eight months later, in August 2012, the same part goes out. I went on SearPartsDirect.com and found the part and ordered it myself and did the install as instructed. It then failed another 9 months later in May 2013, so I ordered and replaced the same part again. These dishwashers are the same as Whirlpool and Maytag brands as well, and if you do a google search on control panel failures, you can find a huge number of people with similar issues.

This brings me to last month, when for the fourth time, the control panel failed again. I called Sears, including their executive helpline, and explained the situation, including the providing the order numbers for the multiple control panels I had ordered. I was told, that earlier this year, Sears changed their parts warranty and instead of one year, it is now 90 days. Hmmm, I wonder why?

The dishwasher itself cost less than $400. I have now spent over $300 in parts, and Sears wants to charge me another $112 so I can fix it again. My wife and I decided that even with Thanksgiving coming up and 15 people over for dinner, we can do without a dishwasher for a while. Sears sold me and I suspect a lot of people a lemon of a dishwasher and they will not get another cent from us.

UPDATE: Sears noticed my tweet of this post and called me to offer me a brand new dishwasher at 25% off. Wow, what a deal. That only puts me another $200-$300 in the hole to Sears. Are you kidding me? I also have no guarantee that this one won't fail and if I buy a more expensive dishwasher to make sure it does not fail in the future, I will be out even more money than I paid for the original dishwasher 3 years ago. I told them that their deal was not acceptable and I would now no longer shop at Sears.

It might not be Parkinson's causing all your symptoms

2013-11-08T13:56:00.001-08:00

I've expressed my frustrations with my DBS not really having much affect on my gait issues. I'm still taking my entire regimen of medications and while my tremor disappeared, I've not seen much gain in any other aspects of my symptoms. This lead me to look at other possibilities, and low and behold, I might have found one.

About 5-6 years ago, my General Physician, found that my Thyroid function was low. He put me on a steady regimen of Levothyroxine and checked my Thyroid levels once a year when I went in for annual physicals and basically let it go at that. About two years ago I stopped taking the Levothyroxine. I can't really say why, just I never really felt different taking it or not taking it, or so I thought.

I went to my GP again last week and he had my blood work done and my thyroid TH level had skyrocketed. I had done some research before the appointment and asked both him and my neurologist if thyroid function could affect gait. Both quickly said, "Yes!" So, there you go, my physician re-prescribed me the Levothyroxine and I am now taking it.

The problem now is that the dosage I was prescribed was what I was taking 2 years ago. I didn't titrate up and I am actually a mess the past two days. However, my doctor prescribed me a lower dose today to titrate up to my old dosage and told me to call his office next week. Why am I confident that this might be a missing link? Ever since I started the Levothyroxine, my tremor has reappeared right after I take a Sinemet and my walking gets even worse for about 20-40 minutes. While most folks would say that's bad, to me it says, the Levothyroxine is affecting either the function of the Sinemet or what I thought were PD symptoms but are actually Thyroid ones. So, I'm going to switch to the titrating dosage and have my programmer readjust my program more for tremor than the gait that she was working on with me (according to her, this usually involves raising the frequency of the electrical stimulation).

My programming appointment is Monday and hopefully I'll be able to function a bit better by then, especially because I've only run twice this week and I have to run twice this weekend to keep up my training schedule. I'll report back over the next few weeks how this new med regimen is working.

Batteries were not included

2013-10-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

I know I said I'd get this out sooner; however, life just got in the way. Work has been very busy (that's good) and so has our home life. I will say that my tremor is basically gone, unless I really start adjusting the settings on my DBS to a program and voltage that I don't like. However, my gait, balance and freezing are all still there. To label this disappointing is an understatement.

I have been charged up since the beginning of September. The first two weeks were just low level voltage to get my brain used to electricity. The remaining weeks we've been playing with which electrode combinations I use and which voltages, pulse widths and frequencies work best. I am not allowed and cannot adjust anything except the voltage range (I'm given about a 2V range per program) for one of the four programs that I are currently available to me via my remote. If any engineers are reading this, it's basically a process which could use a good Design of Experiments (DOE), but that is not how they do things. I might have to work on that and show the nurse who programs me the process.

I have worked through three of the four electrodes (I originally thought there were only three) and a couple of combinations as well. I've found settings that make my meds last a very short time and I believe I've found one that may extend the effect of my meds as well. This is a good thing and is the first very positive result. I need a few more days of testing to make sure what I am feeling is real and not just some random occurrence. I say this because during the early part of my testing, I had moments where I had not taken any medicine and I was walking fine. However, these were usually short-lived and didn't repeat themselves.

My wife is understandably, frustrated as am I. But, I am hopeful that this will be an overall positive for me even after the stroke. The one real pain-in-the-ass part is the wire from my brain to the battery seems very tight. When I turn or stretch my neck in certain ways you can literally see it against my skin and feel it as well. My neurosurgeon says it's fine and I'll get used to it, but it is not always comfortable. The battery/pulse generator was bothering me for the first few weeks after surgery, but now I hardly ever notice it, even when running.

As for running, I've signed up with Team-Parkinson's to run the LA Marathon. When I started training, almost 7 weeks ago, I could barely run for a couple minutes straight. I am now on my first full week of running with no stops and have run 20 minutes each time. You can see my progress on my daily mile feed in the lower right corner of this blog, if your interested. I have never run a marathon and the only half marathon I've done was in 1999. However, I am positive I will be able to continue increasing my training and get to the marathon distance thanks to the great support of my family. So, wish me luck and I'll try and get a bit better at keeping the blog updated.

Cell Phone Savings and ETF discount

2013-10-24T09:52:00.000-07:00

I switched cell phone providers in July/August time frame to Ting.com. I switched, while my wife stayed on Sprint because she got her phone in November of last year and the Early Termination Fee would have been horrendous (over $300).

Well, I'd say that switching was a success:

My bills the past three months: $34.85, $32.70 and $26.13.
My wife's bills the past three months: $69.70, $69.70 and $69.70.

This represents a drop of already $30 a month or $660 per year from $129.99 that we were previously paying in our joint phone account. Now, Ting is offering a 25% discount on your ETF's. So, I'll be switching my wife's phone over sooner that I originally expected. This should save us an additional $30 per month.

The only issue may be that Ting does not allow roaming for data. However, since most places we go nowadays either have coverage for Sprint or wifi access, I'm pretty confident this will not be a problem.

I'll update in couple months to let folks know if we are saving even more. If you click the Ting.com link in the first paragraph, you'll get a $25 discount on your first month's service.

Rehab is my new job

2013-08-17T14:10:00.005-07:00

Those were the words I told my wife after we learned that I had suffered a stroke during my DBS surgery. The situation was according to my wife:

His neurosurgeon is very optimistic and told us that most people make a full recovery from this. Things in his favor are that he is young, healthy, and his right arm and leg are very strong. Also, he can still USE the limbs---if you ask him to move his leg and arm, hand and foot, he can---he is just having a hard time directing them where to go.

The situation according to me was:

I'm the breadwinner in the family. Despite my Parkinson's diagnosis in 2006, symptoms since 2004, I continue to work full time. My wife is a Marriage and Family Therapist by training, and besides the fact that we both want her to be a Stay At Home Mom, she just does not have the earning potential of a software engineer.
I have just started a new job. I changed jobs in February, and despite the fact that they knew I had Parkinson's Disease when they hired me, I didn't want this to affect my work or my reputation there.
It figures. If you look at our family history, we are always facing these trials and tribulations. My Rabbi stopped by and I told him my family's health situation often makes me feel like JOB. It really didn't surprise me an awful lot that I had a stroke.
My family has a community backing us up that is willing and insists on helping us. Within minutes of posting the above message to facebook along with a request for help with our kids, my wife was inundated with comments, texts, private messages and phone calls offering everything from meals to picking up/watching our kids. This has happened multiple times with our daughter, and I was not surprised that our friends and family stood up again to help out.

So my job was, get working on getting back to baseline. Once my neurosurgeon figured out my med situation and wrote explicit instructions on when and how much of each pill to be administered, based upon his discussions with me, there were literally no more issues with my meds in either the hospital or rehab facility to which I was transferred. The surgery was on Wednesday. On Thursday, I could not even walk a few steps with a walker. By Friday, I had walked the halls of my hospital wing with my nurse and taken a quick shower (not my head, because I could not get the staples wet). Unfortunately, PT never came that day and I only got the walking session with my nurse. Needless to say, my wife was pissed. The hospital had arranged for me to be discharged the next day to an inpatient rehab facility. While this place was further from our home (by about 10 minutes), I would get 3 hours of therapy a day, including PT, OT and speech.

On Saturday, I walked the halls of my hospital wing one last time with the PT, who apologized for me not being seen the previous day. I felt stronger and ready to go to work at the rehab center. I had contacted my boss and he only offered encouragement and told me to keep him updated and just get better. I was discharged around noon and my wife drove me to the rehab facility. Once I was settled into a room, the PT and his student almost immediately took me for a walk using just a gait belt (no walker). The student PT walked beside me, holding the belt and offering me support when I needed it. All the time, her instructor kept asking her questions about what she should be telling me and how I should be doing things. Not only was it interesting to see her education in action, it actually helped me learn some of the things I could have done or will do when my meds are off and I need to pay more attention to my steps, specifically shifting my weight off the back leg and how to get my feet moving when I freeze. She took me up the steps and using the left hand rail, I was able to walk up; however, when using the right hand rail while going down, I could not get my hand to lift off the rail and follow my body down the steps. We finally switched to the left hand rail, and I was able to walk down without further incident. I was encouraged, but knew it wouldn't be easy. The OT came in and assessed my hand coordination and was impressed like everyone else with my strength, and had me do a series of tests to check my fine motor skills with my right hand which were very bad.

Sunday at the rehab center is typically a rest day, but since I got there on the weekend, I still received a half hour each of OT and PT where I saw progress. Also, over this time, I was visited by multiple friends offering support and cookies (a very important part of the healing process). On Monday, I felt very good. I was actually able to type with both hands and wrote notes to both my coworkers and my wife telling them that I was typing with both hands and would be better very soon. During the PT sessions, I was able to do everything better than the previous days and make a lot of progress. By the end of the last session, the PT student was physically pushing me to judge my reaction to being placed off balance and make sure I could correct myself. I had shaved on my own the previous day, but with the OT in the room (outside the bathroom door), I was able to take a shower and clean up. I was still keeping the water off my hair, but had the best scrub I'd had since before the surgery. My second OT session consisted of me writing my name and short phrases to check my legibility and ability to hold the pencil or pen. Once the OT was satisfied with that, she gave me more finger exercises and I was done. The last therapy was done by the Speech Pathologist. This was actually an assessment since I had not had one over the weekend. She basically asked me a lot of questions and gave me a standardized version of a cognition test I'd taken many times before at my neurologist's office. After I answered basically, the entire test correctly, she stated that as a well educated engineer, working full-time, I was probably too high functioning for the test to measure any real impairment. She then proceeded to ask me if I could read a book for a half hour and find some work to do for an additional half hour that I could report back to her or another speech pathologist to determine if I felt at all impaired cognitively.

The next day I had my first full schedule of PT, OT and Speech. However, the PT had discussed having my wife at one of my PT sessions so that she could learn any techniques needed to help me stay safe at home. This was because, five days after suffering a stroke, all of my therapists were very happy with my progress and my ability to take care of myself and get on with my life. During my first OT session, she struggled to even keep me busy and the second session was more just gathering information for me, in case I felt that I would need therapy after I had been discharged. The first PT session was more pushing and movement in four directions at different speeds to make sure I could start, stop, change direction and stay balanced. The second PT session was where the PT student showed my wife how she stood at my side and/or behind me to make sure I was safe when needed. During my last round of speech therapy, the therapist asked me the gist of the chapter I had read and the work I had done and then she gave two sheets filled with large number multiplication and division problems, which we did side-by-side to compare answers. During this day, my therapists all did two things.

Recommended me for discharge which would take place the next day because you cannot receive therapy on the day you discharge.
Asked me whether I wanted to continue therapy on an outpatient basis.

For all of my therapists, with their agreement, I decided to not continue therapy until I got the DBS device up and working in mid-September and determined what my new baseline would be with the DBS device working. The neurologist for the rehab center came in that night and told me he would discharge me the next day and that he even felt I was safe enough to drive since I had basically showed no signs of the stroke less than one week after it occurred.

I was released from the rehab center on Wednesday morning and went home with my family that day, one week to the day from when my surgery started and we first noticed signs of the stroke. It truly was a great day and I have many people to thank in my community, among my friends and family, doctors and therapists, but most of all my wife and kids. I wrote about the women in my house last year when my daughter's halo came off. But I'll say it again, adding my son along for good measure, I'm lucky to have my family in my life. They bring me joy and happiness and inspire me to heal and be the best father and husband I can be.

Thanks!!