Welcome (first posted on Facebook July 13, 2018)

Thank you for joining us on a new blogging site and Welcome to the first installment of my blog, Resisting PD. (Parkinson's Disease) https;//resistingpd.blogspot.com  This is not a primer or instruction book on anything. It is simply my experience with PD and how I have chosen to live by resisting PD. I will occasionally rant, sometimes reminisce and always try to be interesting while being as honest as I feel like being. If you have any sympathy, save it for someone else. I don't need it and prefer not to have it sent my way. I wouldn't know what to do with it anyway.

A goal of this effort is to show what PD is and is not for me, and how I have managed to keep PD at bay for 14 years so that I can live a normal life. I will rant a bit on how many doctors do not manage the care of their patients as well as they could and how exercise is the most important part of beating PD at its own game. I will discuss what I have learned through trial and error on how to halt or even reverse symptoms. One thing I know for certain: if you are willing to work at it, you can develop and maintain a better conditioned body and more physical strength than you ever had prior to PD. I know that you can achieve better physical conditioning than the average person of your age. I have done that. In fact, at the risk of blowing my own horn, I think I may be in better physical shape than 90% of all people my age, with or without PD. Sometimes its really hard work, but you can get there too. I will show you how.

And we will show how music helps so much you can't imagine; not to mention an increase in creative abilities. My photography has improved beyond a reasonable amount in recent years. I attribute this to a side effect of PD which I will explain. My doctor has an opinion on this as well. And make sure you pick the right doctor, someone who is an expert in treating people with the right meds for PD. I will reinforce that PD is not a death sentence; its more like something that annoys the hell out of you, but you can handle it.

If all this helps just one person deal with their PD, then it is worth it to me. Too much optimism? You got a better plan on how to live your life, then follow it. This is just my experience... nothing more. After 14 years, my doctor says to keep doing what I'm doing because it works for me. I know I have been fortunate to have a mild and slow growing type of PD and that others may not be so lucky. Or maybe my approach is why it is slow growing and mild. As I mentioned, this is just my experience. Nothing more. Take it with that understanding please.

Let's start with where and when it all began. I believe it was August of 1961, in Webster, Massachusetts, when I started my 8 year high school and college football career. Since as far as I know, no one knows what causes PD, and I had some very mild and sporadic PD symptoms occasionally over most of my adult life, I'm putting my money on football as the root cause of my PD. I remember dozens of impacts on my head that were really violent and caused me to literally see stars against a black background. As a HS freshman I was 160 pounds playing against 200 pound seniors. Every time I got my bells rung, I knew there could be bad results even as a 14 year old. I played both JV and senior team, both offense and defense. That would be the equivalent of playing in at least 18 games per average Bartlett High School season. My last HS game, I was in the middle of the offense and defense at 190 pounds playing opposite a 300 pound monster fullback on the undefeated Mary Wells HS team from Southbridge and who went on to play for Boston College and the Dallas Cowboys. My head took a beating that day as I was told that I was in on 25 tackles, most against the 300 pound fullback. In college at WPI, I was still one of the smallest defensive players in the middle of the line playing against much larger opponents. And although I played only defense in college, I did intercept a couple of passes, ran with the ball and got clocked pretty well when tackled. I remember a 6 foot 8 inch, 280 pound center for Wesleyan University. My brother came to see me play that game at Wesleyan and gave me a ride home after the game. Relying on my damaged brain for directions, we almost ended up in New York instead of Massachusetts.

Now, 50 years later, with head injury listed as a possible cause of some forms of PD, it is easy for me to blame football. I have recently tested negative for the gene identified as a possible marker for risk of PD. I'm grateful that I have not passed the gene onto my three kids and two grandchildren. And I'm so happy that my sons showed no interest in playing football. While I love watching football as a spectator, I have to admit that we as a culture still do strange things to ourselves in the name of entertainment. Besides football, think boxing. Check with Ali.

Hudson River Park, one of the most dramatic photo shoot sites in NYC

Jump ahead to 2004. That's when my PD symptoms started in earnest and I was tested on two occasions for ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) because that is where all my symptoms pointed and twice for brain and spinal tumors. You won't believe my story on how doctors handled my testing and treatment, such as it was. More about that fun time and who I think I am in the next installment, "Who do you think you are?"

I will try to add photos from my portfolioo and website NYUrbanimages.com to add some color to the otherwise potentially routine appearance of the blog and to show why my doctor and I believe that PD enhances certain creative abilities. . The photos are unrelated to the blog but are such an important part of my life that, as a language without words, the photos can tell their own story.

John Poblocki