Parkinson's and Sciatica turned out to be rotten CAMPERS!

       My husband Dan always camps with his brother Larry and his wife Pennie.  Olya went for the week and Olivia, Frankie and I met up with them on Thursday.  Pennie and Larry's daughter Krista and family came for the weekend.  I told Sciatica and Parkinson's that there wasn't room in the car for them  but they squeezed in somewhere any way!   I had packed my suitcase the week before and Dan ad put it in the car for me so I only needed to gather a few things.   We packed up the car and I only shuffled a few times.  But Sciatica was front and center the entire time!  I took two Tylenol to dull the pain a bit. Sometimes the top of my foot gets numb, I think  that is from the spinal stenosis but it could be from Parkinson's or from both.  The top of my left foot stayed numb most of the trip but the bottom of my foot was fine. It is just annoying to drive with the tingling in my foot!  I don't want to stay home and let Parkinson's and Sciatica win!



        Dan had a full day planned for us. All I really wanted to do was lay down in the camper because Parkinson's really tired me out!  Dan had to help me get in and out of the car and the camper. I could NOT hoist myself up.  He had to pull me out of the car and push me up into the camper!
         The campground was really nice!  I was so glad that I went even though I had really bad Sciatica.  Olya's boyfriend Matt had come the day before and he stayed until late in the evening on the day we arrived! The six of us went to a Fair in the town that was close to the campsite.  We all LOVED the Fair.  It was a 4H Fair and there were tons of livestock.  Olivia, Olya, Matt, and Frank really enjoyed the animals.  Most of the animals were really friendly.  A cow stuck out it's tongue and wrapped it around Frankie's hand!  The goats tried to eat Olivia's and Frankie's shirts.  We also stopped at a GOODWILL store and Olivia got a board game for us to play at night!









Olivia and Olya went on one of the carnival rides. I am NOT a fan of carnival rides because they are assembled and disassembled so many times.


  We went to the Fair two days because Dan wanted to see the big cows and we had never gotten to that side of the Fair!
  Each night we played FACT or CRAP!  It was a fun board game and we laughed a lot while playing! Each night we had a bonfire with all he relatives. We had so much fun laughing and talking about our previous camping trips!! It was so much fun but I hated that Dan had to keep helping me get up and down from my chair BUT PARKINSON'S insisted that he help me!  On Sat. we all went to the pool.  I didn't even bring a  bathing suit because the thought of all the effort of putting on a suit was NOT worth it. There were two huge water slides and lots of fountains in the pool!
  Just watching them was fun enough because I felt like I would fall forward several times during the day. My balance can really be off  randomly here and there. 





 I tried to leave Parkinson's and Sciatica at the campsite but once again they got in the car with me!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Akinetic-rigid Parkinson's Disease

Image
       My Parkinson's symptoms seem to be different almost everyday. Some days I am dog tired and other days I seem to have some energy.  It is difficult to make plans too far in advance because I never know what my Parkinson's will be like on any given day.  My worst Parkinson's symptoms are being off balance and overwhelmingly sleepy!!  I don't know if it is a Parkinson's symptom or  not but I now have such vivid and bizarre dreams! Perhaps it is the liquid medical marijuana that I take at night to help me sleep!! My sciatica,  however, seems to stay the same. It is just pain all of the time unless I take Tylenol or a muscle relaxer. I have spoken to several people who have Parkinson's and many also have sciatica. I asked the doc this morning and he said there is no corelation.   Today I saw a new neurologist at a city hospital.  He diagnosed me with Akinetic-rigid Parkinson's.  He told me that there are two different types of Parkinson's diseas
Read more

Does My Family Really Understand My PD LIMITATIONS??

Image
        I was diagnosed with PD about a year and a half ago but I think I had it for close to a year before that. Once I got on the Carbidopa Leodopa, my life settled back into a "new normal" routine.   My painful Sciatica has always bothered me more than the PD. I don't have tremors, at least not yet. I think that is because I am in the early stages. I have a handicap license plate so I don't have to park as far away from an entrance as I use to have to park.  My husband is always willing to drop me off at the entrance if I don't want to walk as far.  But I try to do the walk so that I stay agile and my muscles don't freeze up too much.   My most noticeable trait is my slow, and shuffling gait.  I can still drive, totally take care of all of my personal needs, go out socially, travel, cook, etc.  I am scared when I have to go up a flight of stairs because I am off balance and I feel like I might fall backwards. I have a death grip on the handrail!  I am not a
Read more

June 2

Image
                June 2 is a very special day in our family.  It was the day that my beloved daughter Amy was born. I was so excited to have a beautiful little girl.  She was my most precious gift and that feeling has never changed.   Amy died at age 18.  After her death, life had no meaning for  us.  We just wen through the motions of living and existing because we still had to finish raising Renee, who was only 13 when Amy died. Dan had told me that friends of his, also bereaved parents, had adopted a little boy from Ukraine. I thought they were absolutely crazy.  Fast forward a few years and that tiny seed grew in my mind. Maybe it was Divine Intervention, I don't know,  but we decided to adopt from Ukraine.  I am so thankful to Ukraine for giving me two of their most precious gifts.  We must have been twice as crazy as his friends because we adopted not once, but TWICE!! We adopted Olivia in March of 2007.  There is so much paperwork to adopt and we had to make several trips
Read more