Episode 10: How a veteran is dealing with his Parkinson's diagnosis

hi everyone and welcome to our segment be sad or be stoic i'm your host jessica krauser and i'm here with my co-host brian baker hey hey and we also have a special guest with us today retired major general denny lage hi how are you good how are you good um we're actually just going to go ahead and just jump right in so denny why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself um i was uh i grew up in monaca pennsylvania small steel town used to be a steel town now it's uh just a vacant shell of what it was but i went to high school and uh played football and and other sports in high school as most small town people do and i was lucky enough to get a scholarship and played college football at lafayette and then was um nrotc and was commissioned as second lieutenant in the army served 35 years in the army most of it in the reserve components short tour on active duty and then went into the reserve components and had a career in finance and manufacturing and uh in 2001 when we started the war on terror i was recalled active duty and retired in 2006 as a major general i served in kuwait honduras germany iraq and went to the army war college and also did uh post graduate work in international uh uh or uh national security international national security at kennedy school at harvard wow yeah nice how's your background looking nothing like that yeah that's that's a lot of great stuff congratulations and thank you for all your all the years that you've served our country and i know you you do a lot more now too right you're you're speaking and you talk to have um i uh uh took an oath in 2001 or in 1971 when i was um commissioned and i think i that oath still applies i still try to serve i am a senior fellow at the eisenhower media network i am the chair of the executive executive director of the all volunteer force forum and serve as the chair of the veterans advisory committee to our veterans memorial downtown in columbus wow nice and my my other thing that i do is that i'm a part-time employee at ohio dominican university where i'm the director of the patriots program which takes care of our veterans and sees that they um uh take advantage of their jet benefits which they've richly deserve and earned and nurture them through the process of uh getting a degree that's great i really feel like i do that right now that's awesome so you have all of that experience and then you were diagnosed with parkinson's yes when was that uh july of last year okay so it's only been not even a four year rookie wow so what's that experience been like for somebody it's been it's been quite an experience you know i um uh was diagnosed in july but of course had the uh the the year or two preceding denial but i was not surprised when uh the diagnosis was final i was surprised at a couple of things i thought sure when i did the brain scan that football you know the concussions were uh were part of it but you know when i played the concussion protocol was smelling salts uh how many fingers do i have up to get back in there it's it's quite different now but it's been an experience and one that i've accepted and grown into but it changes things but i'm a lucky guy i really am i have a great doctor and that good insurance and supportive family and friends and my wife is a very supportive and uh she's supportive but not patronizing which is important and very important it's been a it's been it's been a real journey because you know my entire life i've viewed myself as an athlete and it changes things a bit my golf game is not nearly as it's more exciting now than it was before but you know you adapt and you adjust and make the best of it so you and i had a conversation and this is why the topic is the way it is be sad or be stoic and um brian didn't get to to hear your take on in your philosophy of how you've approached parkinson's based on all your experiences and who you are as a person so can you talk to us about what does it mean to have a stoic philosophy when you are approaching something like pd yeah stoicism is uh misunderstood you know there there's a small case stoic which is the uh you know the definition it's um stiff upper lip and uh no emotions et cetera et cetera then you have the large case stoke which is a stoic philosophy and the stoics are uh are are not at all uh stiff upper lip no emotions it's a it's a matter of uh character and virtue that that serves the foundation of stoicism but stoics believe in and pursue joy and tranquility and gratitude and uh they're they're critical elements of it but they're critical elements they apply to parkinson's too you know we have a lot to be grateful for as we make this journey and the um the other things that uh that they're part of it but um it's a uh the the focus is on character and virtue you know you you during um from probably about 19 the late 80s until 1995 96 i was very involved in the covey if you're familiar with covey seven habits uh you know it's it's a of life's philosophy but you find a lot of things that are are common to us covey seven habits you know nietzsche the the philosopher who talked about uh that which does does not kill me makes me strong parkinson's a test for all of us to uh to deal with and it's uh you know it's easy to be uh walton through life when the birds are chirping in the sun shining but when you uh when you can't make a step or you you fumble or you're you can't control the tremor of your hand it becomes a test and it's it's it's a way to build character but it depends on how we deal with it you know no one chooses to have parkinson's but choices that we have is how we deal with it you know what do we do we uh succumb to the fear and the anxiety and the frustration and also the anger you know the uh uh the philosophy deals a lot with um fear and anxiety and anger and there's fear and anxiety that comes from the uh from being a parkinson's uh victim and also the families you know those around you i have fear and anxiety you know is he gonna fall down when he tries to get out of the car or whatever but uh you know you deal with it but the other one is anger and um you know the stoics believe that um anger is a form of insanity but it's easy to get uh to get down on yourself and um uh have the frustration and the anger and uh uh not enjoy the uh the uh the good by the good parts of life yeah and we were talking about the good parts of if there is a good part to parkinson's is all the people that we've met absolutely absolutely i mean i think about our whole group at pd next steps and you know and and other the young onset groups that i've been a part of as well and there's such an amazing group of people and with amazing backgrounds you know um everybody has everybody has a history you know everybody had i don't want to say a life previous to parkinson's but it it kind of is you know this is just it changes but uh you know it doesn't have to be a a life change it's life changing but it doesn't have to be life dominating yeah i mean you can you can deal with it of course it depends on the severity of the disease but you know there's so many uh resource available to us with medications and exercise and other things that uh we can deal with it but we need to make a choice as to how we deal with it i know that that our our group is um uh energized around exercise and sharing experiences etc etc but i'm sure that there are other people who have gone into a closet and uh are not dealing with it effectively and uh uh that that doesn't have to be well when you said you were you know before you were diagnosed you kind of had that denial i don't know if it's a denial face but we all kind of went through that trying to figure out what was going on right you think you think it's in your head you're like there's something really wrong with me or yeah yeah well there is something wrong let's face it yeah but so how like what what was that process like for you you know when i when i said i i volunteered that i was in denial for a year or two beforehand and um you know the other thing that complicated my diagnosis is that it was during the covet crisis so the other thing is that in december or november of 2020 i contracted covet and was in the hospital i was you know that's pre uh vaccine and all that that's when it was really serious so i spent uh four or five days in the intensive care unit and uh that that some things or complicated things in terms of diagnosis but um uh um i i think that um i was in denial for probably a year or two beforehand and uh you just don't you just don't want to you know you don't want to accept it so there's a lot of groups out there veterans for parkinson's and stuff like that have you looked at your background and seen if there's any kind of connection between uh you know chemicals you might have been exposed to while you're serving or anything that might have caused this no i have no reason to believe that it's it's a serious problem in the military but uh i have no reason to believe that um that that my military that there's anything in my military service that would have contributed to i'm the same way so you said there's veterans for parkinson's yeah there's a there's there's groups out there veterans for parkinson's like that where a lot of a lot of people served in vietnam um have come down with parkinson's because of the chemicals that they were exposed to yeah the agent orange the effects yeah the va has accepted that the other thing is you know that in the in iraq and afghanistan iraq in particular we have the burn pit issue uh and uh it's serious but um i have no reason to believe that there's anything in my military service that contributed i was really i was really surprised though when the brain scan came back it was clean i thought sure that the concussion football were working so was that an mri that they did or did you do a dat brain scan i did an mri mri okay yeah i was really i was very surprised i was almost disappointed you'd like to have something you can pin it on yeah yeah right like that that's what we all want to do it's like you know even i think you were saying before that your your mom was even saying like is it something she did or was it you know something that we did ourselves but yeah and i think we just have to accept where we are and uh and deal with it as effectively as we can and make sure you know that one of the things that the stoics say is that you have to distinguish between what you control and what you don't control and the the whole idea of control in our life is uh uh such a myth there's there's very little that we control we can influence some things but uh we need to distinguish between what we can control and what we can't and and deal with it uh in terms of reality so since you're still i mean i'll consider you newly diagnosed because it hasn't been a year yet what would you tell somebody who has just been diagnosed what advice could you give them uh seek the best medical advice you can get listen to your doctor exercise and join the community join a community of parkinson's [Music] patients or victims or whatever whatever we are you know but there's a community out there and and uh it helps a lot it really does to be uh to be part of the community and um uh uh share the experience and don't feel sorry for yourself that's that's the big thing focus on what you can do not what not what you can't do you know i i always say that i can do everything that i did before just not as much and do it slower but uh but that's okay the other the other thing is that um uh you know people uh tend to to have pity uh i i find that a lot and it's just that's just not helpful when they say oh i'm so sorry yeah i say sorry for what you know i i i have this disease and i but i have a lot of resources and i'm really a lucky guy given the uh resource that i have in the community that i've found no i think that's great yeah i i couldn't stand it when pills people said how are you feeling like like like you were dying or you know like i'm fine like fine how are you yeah yeah yeah but it's uh but it's a it's an experience that um i wouldn't wish on anyone but if you if you if you are exposed to if you if you do have parkinson's uh it's not the end of the world and uh you have to make some decisions on on how most effectively you can deal with it and i think that uh i'd just suggest to uh to any spartans patient that take a look at the stoic uh philosophy because there's there's there's a physical piece of it but there's an emotional piece of it too and uh you know i've been a gym rat my whole life so the physical piece of it i've adapted to really pretty well but the emotional piece of it is is something that um uh uh i i think that that the the still a philosophy can really help i think that's great in our last 30 seconds i'd like to leave you all with this the stoic philosophy is one we can all learn from while some may stereotype stoics as suppressing their emotions like you said their philosophy is actually intended to teach us to face process and deal with emotions instead of running away from them parkinson's is a part of our journey michael j fox said this disease is something that's attached to my life it's not the driver so you have a choice you can be in control and be the driver or you can be the passenger to help you make that choice i'll leave you with one more quote from michael j fox he said i often say now i don't have any choice whether or not i have parkinson's but surrounding that non-choice is a million other choices that i can make thanks for tuning in thanks danny [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The Secret Life of Parkinson's

Views: 2,694

Keywords: parkinson's, young-onset parkinson's, YOPD, PD, Parkinson's caregiver, PD diagnosis, the secret life of parkinson's, talking about your PD diagnosis, how to tell my family about my Parkinson's diagnosis, veterans with parkinson's, stoicism and parkinson's

Id: 5XXCmCpMV6M

Length: 16min 23sec (983 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 11 2022