health – S'amusing

THE VOICE….I Can’t Hear You!!!

For any soldier who put on government issue white boxer shorts or had his head shaved to the skin in the first few days of Basic Training, these words are forever etched in your mind…

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU, TRAINEE!”

Whether inches from your face or in front of the assembled company, be it a Drill Sergeant or Officer, regardless if we were already at the high end of a decibel scale, our replies were never loud enough, hence…

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU, TRAINEE!”

Why? Harassment? No, the military trains young men and women to be soldiers, and soldiers need to respond with certainty, confidence and INTENT.

Following months of training, we became soldiers, found our voices and took on our missions with INTENT

Fast forward decades later, and the drill sergeant has been replaced with a speech pathologist who sends the same message but with a softer tone…

“I can’t hear you, Steve.”

I have Parkinson’s Disease and one mark of many Parkinson’s patients is a softening of the voice associated with an expressionless face. Thankfully, there’s help, speech therapy.

I suspected there was an issue with my voice and it festered until I found the right people to help me. After a month of therapy sessions, I’m happy to report that I’m on the right track to returning my voice to appropriate audible levels. I understand the importance of ‘speaking with INTENT’ and, if I waiver, I have a ‘toolbox’ to correct myself.

Just as I exercised my body in Basic Training to build strength and endurance, now I’m exercising my voice box to strengthen my speech. Instead of daily runs, countless push-ups, jumping jacks and the rest of the army’s ‘daily dozen’, I’m exercising my voice with ‘speak out exercises’ and reaching decibel levels that heretofore were routine and automatic

It’s challenging

And, like the physical military exercise, if I don’t make my vocal exercises a regular routine, the voice will soften, again. The program is ‘SPEAK OUT, Speaking With Intent’ and the local effort is part of a nationwide practice to teach Parkinson patients how to fight back.

The challenge is to be aware of my speech and apply vocal exercises on a daily basis to improve and maintain voice quality.

Parkinson is a slowly progressive neurological disease that afflicts each patient differently. It can impact speech, motor skills and memory over time. Other than a pill, a recommended course of action is to ‘fight back’ with rigorous physical exercise for the body and voice.

Big movements! Big voices! Big rewards!

And there’s no need to yell, “YES, DRILL SERGEANT”, a simple “thank you, Jaime and Heather” will suffice.

Steve

080124

To my two speech pathologists, Heather and Jaime (URMC), who guided me without intimidation, just INTENT.

To Box Is To Dance

Slip right-Slip left… Jab-Cross

Slow-Slow… Quick-Quick (Foxtrot)

Can you sense it?

Duck right… Cross-Jab

Duck left… Jab-Cross

Slow, Quick-Quick

Slow, Quick-Quick (Waltz)

Do you feel it, the rhythm, the flow, the choreography?

Yes, it’s there, the melding of two precision athletic disciplines, boxing and dancing.

Jackie Chan, martial arts actor, cites iconic dancers, Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, in an interview for Kung Fu Magazine, as two of the primary influences on his fight choreography. * Now, Chan was not a boxer but the correlation is the same. (* mentalfloss.com, Anna Green, 5/10/2017)

World heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali once quipped that he “floats like a butterfly..,”. The same can be said for dance, good dancers glide on their feet, on their toes, flowing through moves, ‘like a butterfly’.

A boxing match might look like a wild affair with fast flying fists, but, like dancers, boxers use all their upper and lower body, arms and legs, in well disciplined moves, changing positions, moving their opponent (partner) while repositioning themself, back and forth, left and right, preparing for the next move, a punch combination, or for a dancer, a twinkle or turn.

Like a dancer’s steps that move to a count, the boxer’s punches have numbers, one thru six, and names to match. Watching a match with an understanding of the names, one can easily see the choreography of the punches, the combinations, the head fakes, the ‘dance’, regardless the speed.

Boxing has its ring, dancing, a floor, the arenas where boxers and dancers ply their craft with music to stimulate the action and accompany the performer.

I’ve danced socially for enough years to appreciate the athleticism of the art of dancing. an activity that is cognitively and physically challenging. The same for boxing. Both keep you thinking and moving continuously with varying changes in tempos.

My dancing was undertaken for fun and exercise, the boxing I do now is to stay fit, strong, alert, have fun, a prescription for better health.

The medical community looks approvingly on boxing as one component in a toolbox of physical activities to fend off the travails of certain ailments.

“Boxing’s varied and high-intensity workouts offer a blend of strength and cardiovascular conditioning that improves agility, coordination and balance, and which may be especially beneficial for people with neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.” (NY Times, 5/23/22, Rachel Fairbank)

My punching is improving as I learn new combinations, but my footwork is sloppy. I’m not at the butterfly stage…yet.

Steve (050124)

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Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes…

Knee’s & toes, knees & toes…

Remember this old rhyme recited with your young children, or with your parents when you were a youngster? As it was recited, you would touch the mentioned body parts, joyfully reaching, bending and touching with each mention of a part from top to bottom, or head to toes, as it were. What a fun teaching moment and exercise activity.

Try that now, but be careful. You’re not a kid, anymore.

Try gracefully moving those once supple muscles that flowed like melting butter and joints that moved like a well oiled hinge. Not as easy, now, is it.

With a good effort, I find that I can still do it, bend and reach, but at a slower pace, at least initially, and with a slight hesitation, trying my best to remember where those parts are (ala ‘The Macarena dance). Yes, the rhythm and pace is entirely different today.

However, I still try because moving is important. And, with a slight modification, I think I’ve created a new version, one meant strictly for us Seniors which I call the ‘pain game’. Touch the spots where it hurts…

“Head, neck, shoulders and elbows… shoulders and elbows…. Head, neck, shoulders and elbows…. Wrist and fingers, too!”

That’s just the upper torso. A second verse covers hips, knees and feet.

Get the picture? Remember, it’s for fun and exercise, even if it hurts a little…and it will.

While this is all in jest, it does point out a message for those of us of a certain ilk, ‘senior citizens’, it’s important to keep moving.

At my local health club, I see Seniors in the pool, on the equipment, in classes, moving. Not as fast nor as smoothly as the younger patrons, or our younger selves, but still moving.

Every seat in the chair exercise classe is filled with Seniors moving, stretching, bending, reaching, pushing themselves to get and stay fit. It’s admirable.

Today, I heard an interview with a world class athlete, Colin O’Brady. He’s climbed all the highest peaks in the world and in each U.S. state in record time and is the first person to traverse Antarctica by foot, alone, pulling a 300 pound supply sled. His excellent book,, ‘The Impossible First’, describes this venture.

Colin’s newest project is to get people moving, alone with only your thoughts, unencumbered by cell phones, at your pace, resting when necessary, for 12 hours. His new book, The ‘12 Hour Walk’ gives you the motivation to take the challenge. I’m thinking about doing it. Only thinking, now, but with each chapter I read, the more appealing it sounds. It’ll certainly keep me moving for awhile, at least 12 hours, just me and my thoughts.

Not sure that I have 12 hours of thoughts.

“Your Fly Is Open…”: Misplaced Priorities

I have reached an age where my train of thought often leaves the station without me. (Clear Thoughts)

She alerted me with an edgy, disgusting sort of admonition, “you can’t leave the house like that, your fly is open“. I looked down and, yes, she was right, again.

“Just be thankful I remembered to put on pants”, I wanted to say. Instead, I just grumbled something incomprehensible and corrected the little faux-pas.

What happens to a person after a certain point in life? Does forgetting to do routine stuff become the new norm? It seems to be.

“You did it again, you left the toilet seat up”, she called from one of our ‘too many’ bathrooms. .

I grew up in a large family, five boys and two girls, with one bathroom, just 1. If we closed the toilet seat cover every time it got used, my father would have spent several paychecks a year replacing it because the hinges would have become unhinged ( I feel that way, myself, at times).

But this isn’t a commentary on habits, good or bad. It’s about forgetfulness creeping in as I age. I don’t even want to call it ‘forgetfulness’, the things I forget just aren’t a high priority. A down zipper? Open toilet? No big deal.

My high priority stuff is more like eating, finding my keys, whether to hit or hold 14 in a blackjack hand and scheduling a beer night with other seniors.

At my local health club, I find myself looking in the mirror to make sure I’m properly attired before going to the pool. It’s one article of clothing and I have to check to make sure I’m wearing it? Maybe that should be a higher priority.

I’m the guy in the grocery store parking lot looking for his car with a cart full of dairy products souring and ice cream melting under a summer sun. I’ve often come close to calling security to report a stolen car but how many times can a guy do that before getting labeled a public nuisance?

I’m thinking about realigning my priorities closer to what she’d like (yes, her, the better half). After 54 years of marriage, it’s the least I can do, don’t you agree? If this works, I’ll be reprimanded fewer times for forgetfulness and feel better about myself.

Whoops, I spoke too soon…

“You didn’t set the house alarm last night!”, she reminded me at breakfast

“Wow, we’re lucky we made it to morning alive”, I muttered into my coffee cup, having just gotten over the shock of noticing that I put my socks on the wrong feet (yes, the fancy logo faces out).

I’ve a grand memory for forgetting (Robert Louis Stevenson)*

Steve Bottcher (070923)

*Brainy Quotes

“PLAY BALL!”

Pitcher, outfielder,Dad/coach/umpire, first baseman

It wasn’t a call that reverberated over the fences and throughout the neighborhood. No, it was more of a professorial urging by the umpire, “play ball”, and we did.

Today was the official opening of the new ball field, a garden like area nestled among stately homes, comfortably laid out in the family’s new backyard, with floral baselines, an ornamental outfield tree and even a mini brick wall, Wrigleyesque. For lack of a formal name, I’ll refer to it as Claybourne Field, or “the field” for short.

Such a difference from the ‘old field’, a simple front yard lawn on a busy avenue, a family lab of sorts, where a father and his two young sons bonded forever thru America’s pastime, baseball. A place where the boys learned to hit, run and throw and their dad/coach/umpire honed his parenting skills. *

Every new ballpark has some semblance of a pregame ceremony. Today was no different and I was truly honored to throw out the first pitch, three exactly, one to each boy and their dad. My own solo practice sessions leading up to the big day rewarded me with three perfect pitches, fastballs right down the middle.

Following the pregame festivities, it was time to start the first game on ‘the field’’. I played the pitcher position for both teams, guaranteeing me to be both the winning and losing pitcher, probably a first in baseball annals.

For two innings, I kept the offenses guessing with my repertoire of ‘stuff’: fastball, curve, knuckler, change up and even a hit batsman to keep the hitters honest and away from the plate. Oh, they hit me, alright, and even scored a few runs but the game was low scoring until the third and final inning when the floodgates opened.

The hitters, kids and dad, finally figured me out and sprayed hits all over the field. The tall, lanky first baseman sent shots whizzing by my ear. The small, spunky outfielder swung for the fences on every pitch, pointing where the ball was going each time. Such swagger! Such chutzpah, even. **

Not to be outdone, the dad/coach/umpire peppered the outfield wall and trees, often sending the spheroid out of sight with his brute strength, building a big lead. Not even my high leg kick delivery slowed the onslaught.

The third and final inning saw a valiant comeback effort by the boys stopped in its tracks when the dad snagged a wicked line drive for the final out and a 16-10 winning score.

Thanks for inviting me to join your game and be a young man, again, boys. It was fun to be part of your story and write about it. The autographed ball has a special place on my shelf and in my heart.

This is the third story chronicling my former neighbor and two sons and their love of baseball. See the links below for the first two.

Steve (062623)

* https://srbottch.com/2023/03/18/they-closed-the-old-ballpark-today/

** https://srbottch.com/2021/10/02/the-kid-he-called-it/

Find my stories at ‘srbottch.com’)

‘Cheeky Business’

What’s the saying, “every dark cloud has a silver lining”? It’s true, with the right circumstances, one can find it, even in something as daunting as COVID.

Like many of you, I’d been jabbed once, twice, quadrupled even. Nevertheless, as we’ve learned and as medical science has confirmed, jabs don’t guarantee immunity to COVID and all its permutations, but the extra protection…well, it’s just extra.

And if a little extra is good, then why not have more? Thanks to a challenging immune system, I became a candidate for more, Evushield.

Evusheld is meant for candidates like me, those with immune system issues who willingly follow a trusted doctor’s advice for the promise of an extra barrier against COVID, albeit for a brief period, 6 months, I believe.

But that’s not the silver lining.

Evusheld is a two shot process, one in each cheek, the big cheeks. This story is enjoyed best if you visualize it.

If my memory serves me, my last cheeky injection was from a pediatrician. And the last ‘double shot’ may have been in a bar in Cleveland. Before that, Uncle Sam protected me with two shots, one in each arm as I walked the ‘gauntlet’ of medics at the Fort Ord Army reception center. I was protected against everything except the harassment.

With Evushield, the shots were given by two very affable and capable young nurses, positioned behind me, kneeling, I assume. But that’s not the ‘silver lining’. In fact, truthfully, it made me a bit anxious.

Here’s the real ‘silver lining’. The good humor nurses explained the process and wiped away any trepidation and what was a serious discussion initially, quickly turned into light banter, as they prepared two needles. Humor is the great relaxer.

When the order was given, “stand up and turn around”, our banter continued. I was relaxed, even as the feel of latex gloves grabbed hold to keep me in place.

Then the countdown began. ‘3-2-1-jab!” I thought I was listening to a SpaceX launch.

Why the countdown and why two nurses? The shots have to be given simultaneously, one in each side. The serum must meet in the middle and blend, right?

An hour in recovery followed and I went home with a good story. Butt for the early hour, it was just another chapter in my notebook of COVID stories, this time, a story of good people and good humor.

And I love a good story.

Steve B

To nurses on the front line who do remarkable work under stressful conditions