Hi, everyone,
I've hesitated to post this message in part because so many of you are facing
such greater challenges and problems, in part because I've been swamped with
bad news and catching up at work since Don and I returned from a long vacation.
I can't edit in the program I'm in now, so please ignore any typos or doubled
words (or words left out). I suspect this will be a long(ish) message, too--
but I don't know exactly what I'll say until I write it.
As I mentioned in May or June, Don and I and our two sons, then 8 and 6 years
old, hiked the 211 miles of the John Muir Trail in 1971. As this year is the
25th anniversary of that hike, we decided to do it again. Never mind that Don
has been diagnosed since 1974 (and probably had PD in 1971 or earlier). The
boys were going to accompany us on parts of the trip, and we've been backpacking almost every summer since (shorter trips). We deluded ourselves into not
recognizing that even though the stimulation surgery (of June 1994) had
reduced Don's tremor, the PD was progressing. In short, we bit off more
than we could chew. There was no way Don could make such an extensive trip
carrying a heavy pack. Even when we redistributed the load so he'd have less
to carry, it was often too much. So the bad news is that we didn't complete
the planned trip. The good news is that we did backpack nearly half of it
(100 miles). Our son and daughter-in-law were with us for the first nine
days, Don and I were on our own for about five days, our older son joined us
for eleven days, Don and I were on our own for four days. Juggling cars at
various trailheads meant we had to come out of the wilderness at the end of
each section, so we didn't have the extended wilderness experience I'd hoped.
Still--we spent nearly an hour watching two four-point bucks browsing in a
meadow below Donohue Pass (about 11,000'), had dramatic sunrises and sunsets
in the high country, ate delicious out-of-the-lake-into-the-frying-pan trout,
and walked through acres of head-high lupine in a section of the forest that
had been burned over about ten years ago.
Don couldn't balance on the logs that crossed some of the creeks and rivers,
so he crawled on his hands and knees, pack on his back, on those crossings.
He refused to let anyone take a picture because it "showed his limitations"
and was "undignified". I thought it showed courage and tenacity, but I left
the camera in my pack.
Anyway, we did have a good time, and it was a reality check for us and for
the boys.
Then we got home and found out that my brother had been rushed to the hospital
w/chest pains and had immediate angioplasty (he survived), my stepbrother had
been rushed to a different hospital w/chest pains and died two hours later of
a massive heart attack, my mother-in-law had been back in the hospital w/stomach
problems; logging on here, I learned of Alan Bonader's death--I still haven't
come to grips with all of these events. Meanwhile, I'm trying to catch up
with things at work.
I hope our good news/bad news gives hope to you YPDers
{Joann:!clear
:!clear
