Healing

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Introduction

“How did I wake up one day and discover I was over half a century old”? How did that happen? Where did this “thorn in the flesh” come from? I don’t have a clue. A “thorn in the flesh” is not necessarily what your spouse considers you. Here in Arizona, it might be better phrased “a jumping cholla cactus needle in the flesh.” Anyone who has had a clump of cholla needles attach to any part of your body will understand why tequila was invented.

The phrase “a thorn in the flesh” is attributed to the Apostle Paul of Tarsus in his second letter to the Corinthian church about 57 A.D. It means he was afflicted with something painful and long lasting, a bodily weakness or disease that won’t go away, kind of like Parkinson’s disease. It doesn’t kill you right away, but it is a disease that won’t go away and many mornings I wake up and think, “Oh No! Do I have to go through another day with this?” The answer comes, “Yes, you do.”

Paul writes that he was afflicted to keep him humble, but he rejoices that God’s strength rests upon him. He can do “all things, through Christ who strengthens” him. (Philippians 4:13, KJV) It took me several years to accept this disease, and I have learned to ask not “why do I have this?”, but “why not?” I try to avail myself of God’s power but since I am not the Apostle Paul, I don’t so much take pleasure in infirmity, but rather endure it.

Life is a journey and you are dealt inscrutable cards to play. It is hope in God’s grace and His strength that pulls me through each day. The intent of this book is to inspire hope in whoever reads it. Yes, Parkinson’s is tough, and no, it is not much fun, but God’s grace or all-sufficiency can pull us through. I have learned from experience that only as we count on His faithfulness to His creatures do we have any hope at all.

Life

There are over 6 billion of us living on this small speck of a planet. The universe is far too complex to be understood. Most of us can’t figure out how to put toothpaste back into the tube, much less comprehend the majesty of nature. Yet many humans live their lives with no God-consciousness. They think that the surrounding world just “happened.” Reason can only take us so far trying to figure out the mysteries of life. When all avenues are explored and reason has no answer, then we must bridge that gap with faith or hope in the God who made all things, sustains life on this planet and, unfortunately for us, allowed us to have Parkinson’s.

I live in central Arizona. Ok, so many of you might be asking “why?” In the Sonoran desert, life is tough. As in much of life, there are pro’s and con’s. We do enjoy some beautiful sunsets that reflect the beauty of God’s handiwork yet at the same time we are saying to ourselves, “Boy, I’m glad that the sun is finally retiring for the day.” You can wear shorts and a tank top to any function, such as weddings, churches and funerals, even your own. You are able to drive your car with only 2 fingers on the steering wheel, and you can proudly say without fainting “it is only going to be 113 today”, yet it is very hard to describe rain to your kids and why NONE of our rivers have water in them.

Parkinson’s patients dare not get caught outside in July. We move so slowly that we may experience “spontaneous human combustion” or ‘SHC’ as it is known. “I don’t know what happened, officer. We were walking from the store to the car and my husband just burst into flame.” TV weather people read the exact same teleprompter screen day after day (sunny and hot) and report “cooling trends” when temperatures drop below 110. We have 4 seasons like any other state in this country, but they aren’t the usual winter, spring, summer, fall sissy stuff nonsense. Our seasons are tolerable, hot, really hot and “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” Yet, somehow, almost 4 million people manage to live their lives here in the desert, although in mid-July somewhat grumpily.

The expression “old as dirt” isn’t as funny as it used to be. Referring to the retirement community in Arizona where I live as “God’s Waiting Room” or “Seizure World” doesn’t seem as humorous as it once was. I have begun to seriously eye golf carts as an alternate method of transportation. Being near a hospital is strangely comforting. This is the first place I have lived where the police logs record more dead bodies discovered than traffic citations. If you visit my neighborhood, please make darn sure you adhere to the posted rules or you SHALL be yelled at by someone. Rules here signify order and tranquility amidst the surrounding chaos of the outside world. It is where I find myself in my 55th year, bringing another verse from Proverbs to mind – “Man’s goings are of the Lord; how can a man, then, understand his own way?” (Proverbs 20:24).

For many of us middle age folks, it seems that only yesterday we were young, gainfully employed, raising a family perhaps, buying a house or a boat, looking to the future confidently, and brimming with good health. Then, in what seems like an instant, we are approaching geezer-hood; wearing our socks pulled up ALL the way to our knees, concerned about roughage in our diet, actually reading prescription warning labels to see how many pills DO we need to take to get us through our day and where on earth did we leave our short-term memory and the golf cart keys? Looking back, it is easy to see that, at best, our life is a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. Or as Jack Nicholson’s character says in “The Bucket List’’, life is “like smoke through a keyhole.” King David wrote in the Psalms “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” (Psalm 90:11). Life is short, we tell our children, but who listens? The truth is, IT IS SHORT, so make the most of every day.

What a downer to discover this was true. Not only is life short, but now I have Parkinson’s Disease. I bet I’m the only guy in America who, when he watches the President stride confidently across the White House lawn, says to himself “now THERE goes a man with plenty of dopamine in his head.” I have discovered that drooling is not particularly appealing. I can’t consider shooting myself because with the tremors from the disease I’d probably miss my head and blow off an ear, or worse yet wound someone cruising past our house in a golf cart. I’d end up being deaf in one ear and what with co-pays and Medicare paper-work, it just wouldn’t be cost effective to end it all. Not to mention that I have lovely wife and an old cat that I support.

So I endure. Parkinson’s disease, as with many other potentially fatal illnesses, changed my life. I choose to treat the disease with humor and a little bit of anger, but honestly can say that the daily struggle is difficult. Again from the Bible I heard the words of Proverbs “Do not boast about tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring forth.” When I was diagnosed in 2003, the realization that I was mortal came crashing down in my head - I KNEW that I was not going to live forever. I had to face my own mortality, even though, like most of us, I never gave it much thought in my younger years. I figured I had to die of something, but that was a long way off in the hazy future. Hopefully, I thought, I’d just nod off one night and not wake up the next morning, which would, however seriously perturb my wife and the cat. Like Woody Allen once said, “I’m not afraid of dying, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” Life, however, takes several twists and turns and often doesn’t work out like you plan.

The Bible states in Psalm 111, v. 10 that the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” “Fear” in this context does not mean afraid, but is rather “reverential trust” that what His word says is true. It is one thing to “know” that we all must die some day, yet it is another thing “TO KNOW” that you must when it reaches out for you. I faced this with my diagnosis. Ok. Party is over, I’m toast. Most of us like to ignore this fact, yet the internet reports that about 250,000 to 300,000 people a day leave this world. From my limited earthly prospective, can you imagine the processing logistics? If we leave as spirits, where do we carry our wallets? The lines must make the lines at Motor Vehicles inconsequential. If you’re rich, it won’t help you much. How many of us, lying on our death bed, will seriously think it is significant that we once had a 42 foot RV? One of the most compelling essays on the problem of human suffering is the book of Job in the Old Testament. Job 1:21 says “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there.” Not a pretty picture. The Bible states very clearly that all will die due to sin. Where you end up is a choice you have to make “NOW” while you still can.

Beginnings

I was born a severely chubby baby in Jerusalem, Israel. I don’t remember much about Jerusalem, except there were a lot of grouchy camels, the land was almost as barren as the Sonoran desert and there were no McDonald’s. I do remember a lot of men with strange hats putting little pieces of paper in the cracks of the Wailing Wall. The Wailing Wall, or Western Wall, is actually the remains of the great Jewish temple and has stood for almost 500 years. The history and reality of Israel gave me a basis for the faith in later years that helps me get through today. I was raised in a Bible-believing environment. It seems, as I recall, that we had to go to church at least 27 times a week. As I grew, I could not selectively choose those parts of the Word that I liked and disregard the rest. It was either true or it was not. Too much of the Bible makes sense to me to dismiss it out of hand. It points to Jesus Christ as the source of salvation for mankind. Jesus specifically stated in the Gospel of John 14:6 that He was “the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If we accept His teaching and meditate upon it, we realize that what He said is true, or else He was seriously misguided. In my innermost being, my adventure with Parkinson’s is not so much disbelief in what He said, but a failed attempt to run away from what I knew to be the TRUTH.

Our next stop in my childhood was Lusaka, Zambia. After flying about 20 hours we landed in the small country of Zambia, in southern Africa, and my first memory of this momentous event was that my newly acquired little brother threw up as we landed. Africa is a complex and large place where the seasons are backward and there are a lot of Africans. In Zambia alone there were approximately 300 tribal dialects, making for interesting attempts at communication with the locals. June 21 was the first day of winter, and Christmas, although still observed in December, was the middle of summer. My first impressions were of strange fruit such as plantains and mangos, houses built with thatched roofs and mud floors and African wildlife. At the time, I thought it was cool that we had an elephant foot coffee table. Only as I got older did I realize that an elephant had given his all to provide us with a foot for furniture. I didn’t figure that there were too many elephants on crutches.

It was a relief to find out that two ton rhino’s are so dumb that when they charge your car they often swerve at the last minute, promptly forget why they were running in the first place and then keep on going. Their brains are so small for their size that I don’t believe Parkinson’s is an issue for them, although apparently, they are short term memory challenged (as are Parkie’s). It was encouraging to find out that lions didn’t eat people much, even blond, chubby caucasian ones. Crocodiles in the nearby Kafue river were not so picky however, and every once in a while a villager would go missing while doing laundry. As my father was still in the missionary business we did attend church way more than I would have preferred and I was way too busy figuring out life to worry about God, yet I KNEW that there was something out there bigger than I was. He was being faithful and watching out for me as I grew and developed.

Parkinson’s is idiopathic in many cases which means no one is sure how it starts, but in recent years there has been more study as to if it caused by the environment. Zambia was one of the bigger copper producing countries in the world in the 60’s and I often wondered if I picked up something there. There were many other diseases that could be had, including malaria and cholera. One of the worst was bilharzia, or schistosomiasis or simply snail fever. Schistosomiasis, or bilharzia, is a parasitic disease caused by trematode flatworms of the genus Schistosoma. Larval forms of the parasites, which are released by freshwater snails, penetrate the skin of people in the water. In the body, the larvae develop into adult schistosomes, which live in the blood vessels. The females release eggs, some of which are passed out of the body in the urine or faeces. Others are trapped in body tissues, causing an immune reaction. My brother and I had nightmares as we imagined flatworms living inside us. It made for interesting mealtime conversations. We wondered if we could get good old chicken pox or the measles instead. Good old Africa. I couldn’t wait to leave.

History

James Parkinson is generally recognized as giving the disease its name. If his last name had been Swift it would have been wonderfully ironic. Anyone who knows a “Parkie” knows the disease is the antithesis of “swift.” It takes about 10 minutes to walk from your couch to the bathroom and sometimes I get so irritated I crawl on my hands and knees. Talk about life coming full circle. I started out crawling and here I am doing it again. If the house ever burns down, I might as well just grab some marshmallows and sit, because I am not going to make it out. How many “normies” (those with plenty of dopamine in their brain) take 10 minutes to pull their wallet out of their pants?

Parkinson was a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons who published “An Essay on the Shaking Palsy” in London in 1817. Since the disease emanates in the brain, the most complex organ in the body, much of what is known of Parkinson’s is learned by observation. There are approximately one hundred billion neurons in your brain, about the same number as there are stars in the Milky Way. Neurons sprout tendrils that can reach from the very bottom of the brain stem to the frontal lobes, forming a pulsating tangle of fibers laden with amino-acid-rich juices that are in turn soaked up by other tendrils connected to other neurons. There are perhaps five hundred trillion of these synapses; a greater number than even the Federal deficit. Obviously, therefore, no one has a clue as to what is going on in my head.

To quote Parkinson, “The disease is of long duration: to connect, therefore, the symptoms which occur in its later stages with those which mark its commencement, requires a continuance of observation of the same case, or at least a correct history of its symptoms, even for several years.” In other words, without constant observation, no one is exactly sure when it first strikes or what even causes it. What is apparent are the outward displays of difficulty moving your body smoothly.

As Michael J. Fox puts it “Parkinson’s causes your body to part company with your brain.” In other words, I tell my legs to move when I get “stuck” when walking and my legs just laugh at me. If I don’t immediately cease trying to move forward I will fall. When applying for Social Security Disability I fell backwards and hit the bathroom floor hard on my posterior. To bolster my disability claim (the Social Security Administration automatically assumes that disability claimants are just kidding) I sent a picture of my bruised rear end to my lawyer and years later he still goes to trauma counseling. As far as I remember, my first inkling that something wasn’t right with my head began about 10 years ago. My family doctor noticed that my left hand was “pill rolling” and advised a visit to a neurologist. So my adventure with this disease began.

The Neurologist

It is usually not a good sign when you contact a health provider and his staff acts like you are bothering them. Thanks to the blessing of HMO’s in this country, you are forced to find a doctor that is accepted by your plan. Fortunately, I found one of my three approved providers to be closer than 1000 miles from home, but unfortunately, I later found out from fellow patients that he was often referred to as “Satan”. He was about 300 pounds and always carried remnants of breakfast on his shirt. I explained my symptoms as best I could – the fuzziness in my head, my inability to concentrate and my increasing problems with getting “stuck”. I don’t remember much sympathy. I do remember being introduced to the wonderful world of prescription medication with names I couldn’t pronounce. I told my doctor about getting out of my car to go into a store and I could not move. Pigeons were notifying their friends that they had found a new statue to decorate. People were looking at me like I had three heads which further heightened my anxiety. He just shrugged and told me to start taking about 20 pills a day because I had (drum roll please) Parkinson’s Disease. The sad thing is for me, he was right.

To make a diagnosis, at least two of the following conditions must be observed: 1. tremors at rest which is the shaking of a limb when you are not otherwise moving, 2. rigidity or stiffness in your arms, legs, and trunk, 3. Bradykinesia is a slowness of movement and postural instability and 4. balance coordination problems. These problems may not sound so bad, but what is disturbing is that these symptoms only get worse. Parkinson’s is an idiopathic (no one knows for sure what causes it), chronic (long lasting and recurrent), progressive and degenerative (it only gets worse) disease. On a positive note, any condiment that instructed “Shake well before using” was usually handed to me during meals, thus making me feel useful and not totally in despair.

As time went by, I began to display other less known symptoms of Parkinson’s. I developed micrographia or the ability to write so small that my handwriting essentially disappears. I could not smell cooked sauerkraut any more which in many ways is a blessing. Swallowing is not easy unless I chew each mouthful of food at least 182 times before swallowing thus making for very LONG meals. My sense of balance is shot. I have to carry a card in my wallet proclaiming that “No Officer, I am NOT Intoxicated.” I have often thought that this card could be very handy for those people who really are drunk. Although I make light of the symptoms, I must tell you that the disease is not FUNNY. It is truly exasperating when your mind tells you to move, but your legs do not obey. I have fallen five or six times so far. When you go down, you really GO DOWN. My last collapse was outside a movie theater. I pivoted on my feet and suddenly I was going down. My wife looked around and I was gone. Inflammatories for leg and knee injuries have become part of my life. My life now, I am not proud to say, functions on pharmaceuticals. I am truly a modern American. I take about 20 pills a day to keep me going.
The Brain

Anyone who claims to be an atheist need only study the brain with an open mind to perhaps alter his view. It only weighs about 3 pounds and is about 75% water yet manages to consist of about 100 billion neurons. That is a one followed by 11 zeros. It’s not pretty to look at, kind of like a crinkly, gray sponge, but it contains 100,000 miles of blood vessels, enough mileage to circle the earth 4 times. The next time you are sitting next to a talkative insurance salesman from Omaha in a thin skinned pressurized tube, eating a $10 in-flight snack at 37,000 feet while travelling at 570 mph, and it is 40 degrees below zero outside, consider the human brain that conceived it. The brains of humans conceived a man on the moon, the great Pyramids of Giza, the Mona Lisa and yes, even the Ronco Pocket Fisherman. That our brains just “happened” due to evolution or some “big bang” event is ludicrous. Those who don’t see the miracle of design and complexity of this organ truly aren’t choosing to use theirs.

What happens for Parkie’s is that a part of this complex organ isn’t completely healthy. I had never heard of dopamine until I was diagnosed. Deep in my mid-brain in a place called the substantia nigra or “black substance” something has gone wrong and my brain can no longer produce dopamine. I now suffer from a lack of dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter which is produced by the brains of many organisms, including humans. Neurotransmitters are chemicals located and released in the brain to allow an impulse from one nerve cell to pass to another nerve cell. In my brain, my nerve impulses are disobedient and aren’t listening to what they are told to do.

Like other neurotransmitters, dopamine has several different functions. It plays a critical role in the function of the central nervous system, and it is also linked with the brain's complex system of motivation and reward. Altered levels of dopamine in the brain can cause a range of symptoms and problems, ranging from Parkinson's disease to Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). In the realm of the central nervous system, dopamine helps the body function smoothly. The lack of dopamine makes patients shaky, weak, and confused, and many Parkinson's patients have imperfect control over their bodies. Since my neurologist (the Son of Perdition) couldn’t do an autopsy without my consent, (although he wished to) he diagnosed all this by observation. He advised that the cells in my substantia nigra that produce dopamine were “dead. Take these pills and pay your co-pay on the way out”.

The Brain on Medication

Medication can be a wonderful thing. Where would we be without aspirin, flu shots, penicillin and Wart-Be-Gone? It would be rough if we still had to remove Warts with duct tape. If there was no Novocaine, everyone would only have one or two teeth, because absolutely no one would go near a dentist. (What is it with dentists, anyway? They smile and act nice, HURT us, bill us for $5000 and then tell us to floss? Are they kidding? Do you know ANYONE who flosses?) Medication helps us aging mammals get through days of aches and pains with some degree of comfort and be free of warts, however, as we’ve noted before, as in much of life, there are pros and cons. Written over 3000 years ago, Psalm 139 extols the wonder of the human body. “You made my whole being; you formed me in my mother's body. I praise you because you made me in an amazing and wonderful way. What you have done is wonderful. I know this very well. You saw my bones being formed as I took shape in my mother's body. When I was put together there”. David knew he was not a product of evolution. Living with an illness opens your eyes to the complexity of the body and it is truly an amazing discovery. You begin to wonder how ANY of it works at all.

Consider the Blood Brain Barrier. Before I had Parkinson’s I had never heard of it, and if I had I would have tried to amuse myself by saying it several times very fast (you try it) except after a visit to the dentist. That crinkly three pound sponge in your skull is surrounded by Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF), a clear bodily fluid where in essence, the brain "floats". CSF has several purposes including buoyancy, protection and chemical stability. The actual mass of the human brain is about 3 pounds; however the net weight of the brain suspended in the CSF is equivalent to a mass of .05 pounds. The brain therefore exists in neutral buoyancy, which allows the brain to maintain its density without being impaired by its own weight which would cut off blood supply and kill neurons in the lower sections. CSF also protects the brain tissue from injury when jolted or hit. In certain situations such as auto accidents or sports injuries, the CSF cannot protect the brain from forced contact with the skull case, causing hemorrhaging, brain damage, and sometimes death. For chemical stability in the brain, CSF flows throughout the inner ventricular system in the brain and is absorbed back into the bloodstream, rinsing the metabolic waste from the central nervous system through the blood-brain barrier.

Unfortunately, when CSF is protecting the brain from “bad” things, it also is protecting the brain from “good things”. I need to have dopamine (a good thing) in my brain so I can move, but I can’t put it directly into my brain, even if it was packaged and available at Walmart. (Get your Roll Back price on Dopamine!!) I must take Levodopa or L-DOPA. Levodopa (a good thing) can cross the blood-brain barrier. Once it has entered the central nervous system, it is converted into dopamine by one of the 75,000 (gasp!) enzymes in my body. Enzymes are biological catalysts or “assistants” They consist of various types of proteins that work to drive the chemical reaction required for a specific action or nutrient. In my estimation, whoever figured all this out deserves to be nominated as the patron saint of Parkie’s, just as whoever invented air conditioning should be the patron saint of Arizona desert dwellers.

Levodopa is a naturally-occurring dietary supplement and psychoactive drug found in certain kinds of food and herbs (e.g., mucuna pruriens or velvet beans), and is synthesized from the amino acid L-tyrosine in the mammalian body and brain. Levodopa is the precursor to dopamine. A precursor is a compound that participates in the chemical reaction that produces another compound. How could a naturally occurring dietary supplement or natural resource be such a bad thing? Natural resources occur naturally within environments that exist relatively undisturbed by mankind, in a natural form. “Undisturbed by mankind” sounds pretty good in this age of holistic medicine. In other words, if I munch on a few pill from velvet beans I’ll be ok. If only it was that simple. The word you have to watch out for in the description of Levodopa is psychoactive.

Mirapex

Psychoactive is interesting as the word consists of “psycho” and “active”. It brings to mind a psychotic who doesn’t stay at home much. After I was diagnosed in 2003, I found myself in the darkest period of my life. I was angry, scared and felt betrayed by God. I decided to do what I wanted to do and to hell with everything else. One of the first pills I was prescribed is call Mirapex. Drug names are like car names, in that you have to call them something. (I always wondered why you’d name a vehicle after a natural disaster, like the Avalanche. Some of us may remember the Chevrolet Nova, which means “doesn’t go” in Spanish. My personal favorite is the Nissan Moco which in Spanish means “booger”. Imagine showing off your new Nissan Booger to your friends and family – “Wow, that’s a sleek new Booger you have there”, or “My Booger has a 5 year warranty against defects!!”). Mirapex is a dopamine agonist and is prescribed along with levodopa to help Parkie’s live a somewhat “normal” life. A dopamine agonist is a compound that activates dopamine receptors in the absence of dopamine. It doesn’t actually supply dopamine, but tricks the brain’s dopamine receptors into thinking there might be some in there somewhere.

What my doctor (the angel of the bottomless pit) didn’t tell me were all the side effects. The rather lengthy list includes euphoria, hallucinations, causing or worsening psychosis, orthostatic hypotension (low blood pressure which may make you faint), weight loss, insomnia, nausea, unusual tiredness or weakness, dizziness, drowsiness, lightheadedness, fainting, twitching, twisting, other unusual body movements (I can do a pretty good involuntary polka), and pathological addiction to gambling, shopping, internet pornography and hyper-sexuality. Some amazing examples of compulsive behavior made their way to the press. The Associated Press tells of a 68 year-old man who lost more than $200,000 at casinos over six month and a 41-year-old computer programmer who became “consumed” with Internet gambling, losing $5,000 within a few months. Consumers taking Mirapex share similar stories: they allege they experience uncontrollable urges, often resulting in broken marriages, bankruptcy and host of psychological problems including depression and suicide. Many encounter legal problems as a result of their compulsions. These are serious problems and I do not know to this day how much this drug affected me. The Bible teaches that God watches over his own, and I truly believe He used many of my early problems with Parkinson’s to restore me to sanity. I became a 140 pound, depressed and angry man. I became a person completely the opposite of what I once was. I had to lose everything in order to emerge from the darkness into which I fell.

Jonah

The Book of Jonah in the Old Testament tells the story of Jonah, a not-so-bright guy who lived about 800 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. He and I share some similarities as to our thought patterns. God communicated to Jonah that He had a task for him which is to go to Nineveh and speak to the locals about some serious wrong-doings that they were engaged in. Nineveh was an ancient city on the eastern bank of the Tigris River in ancient Assyria or modern day Iraq. God did not command me to go to Nineveh, but when faced with something we did not want to do, both Jonah and I tried to run away. Jonah chose to run to Joppa and hop on a ship going to Tarshish. Here’s where we see Jonah is not so bright as he seriously thought he could run away from God by taking a trip to another place. Where we see that I am not so bright is that I seriously thought to run away from God, not by leaving the desert, but by chasing the great god of fermentation, also known as ethyl alcohol.

Alcohol is a psychoactive drug as is levodopa. It crosses the blood-brain barrier but my CSF does not see it as a “bad” thing and willingly lets it get to my brain. Psychoactive substances are used by humans for a number of different purposes. These uses vary widely between cultures. Some substances may have controlled or illegal uses while others may have shamanic purposes, and still others are used medicinally. Other examples would be social drinking or sleep aids. Caffeine is the world's most widely consumed psychoactive substance, but unlike many others, it is legal and unregulated in nearly all jurisdictions. In North America, 90% of adults consume caffeine daily, according to Wikipedia. Psychoactive drugs are divided into 3 groups: Depressants - those that slow down the central nervous system; such as tranquilizers, alcohol, heroin and other opiates, cannabis (in low doses), Stimulants- those that excite the nervous system; such as nicotine, amphetamines, cocaine, caffeine and Hallucinogens - those that alter how reality is perceived; such as LSD, mescaline, and Psilocybin mushrooms. Since one of the side effects of Parkinson’s is depression, it isn’t too smart to add a chemical depressant to the mix. This is where I share my not-so-bright thought patterns with Jonah. Luckily for him, however, was that he was not taking Mirapex and chugging Captain Morgan Rum as well.

Fortunately for both of us, God was keeping an eye on our paths. Jonah had a much more dramatic rescue as the Bible tells of his being swallowed whole by a large fish. I often wonder what it would be like to be inside the dark, smelly stomach of a big fish for 72 hours. You could not see a thing, you’d probably be burned by gastric juices and were probably seasick the entire time, not to mention the smell. Suffice to say, even though I wasn’t swallowed by a big fish, I gave up on God and proceeded to do what I wanted to do. Thankfully, God in His mercy did not let me destroy myself. One day I just gave up fighting Him and realized my own powerlessness and I, like Jonah, was figuratively burped out of the darkness into the light of day.

Conclusion

After four years now of following Him, He has given me a wonderful wife and completely turned my life around. I remember clearly the day I surrendered my will to God, in other words, I “abandoned” myself to my Creator. In a trance or vision, very real in my mind, I remember going through an open door into a world of sweet smelling peace and beauty. God gave me a little picture of the rest and safety that He offers if we only let Him. The way is not easy, but He promises to be there for us. My life’s verse is Isaiah 41:10. “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Yes, I have a “thorn in the flesh”. Yes it is difficult. God is in control. He knows why things are the way they are, even though I don’t. I hope to leave the reader of this article with the reality that hope does exist for any disease sufferer. Hope must be in God. If we rely on our money, our brains, our abilities, new medications, and anything on this earth, we will eventually be disappointed. We can thank God for His patience and mercy as He waits for his children here on earth to simply quit fighting Him and accept Jesus Christ as Lord. Letting God be in control of your life changes EVERYTHING.

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