Ruminiations from Retirement

The autonomic nervous system is fascinating!     It is the system that “automatically” controls the things that go on in our body without our thinking or consciously controlling.     Our temperature control, for example, is one of its functions.     When we get hot, our blood vessels near the skin dilate to let heat escape, and we produce sweat to cool use through evaporation.     The autonomic system also controls digestion, the “fight or flight” response, breathing and much more.     We can consciously influence it to a degree (holding your breath, for example), but most of what it does is just automatic. Parkinson’s disease can influence the autonomic nervous system years before the typical tremor appears. As I look at the list of symptoms associated with Parkinson’s, I can connect many dots.  I lost most of my sense of smell 15-20 years ago.  That’s one of the dots!   About 5 years ago, bladder spas...

I watched my 4 ½ year-old grandson make his “creation”, giving him affirmation when he repeatedly asked, “Grandpa, is my creation beautiful?”   To someone who just saw the jumbled disordered pieces of colored paper and tape mushed together in a three-dimensional blob, this might have looked like something ready for the trash bin.  But to me, as I watched my grandson carefully tear paper and tape, arranging them in a way that to him had an order and beauty, and to him, evoked a rainbow, it was indeed beautiful and wonderous.  I was observing the image of God in my grandson.  Just like his creator, he desired to create.  And he wanted me to enjoy the creation with him.   When God created the universe, he said it was good, but he didn’t say it was complete.  God has given us an example of being a creator, and has placed within us his image, which includes the desire to create.  He gave us creation so that we could b...

There have been times that I have had to take a pill twice or three times a day.     Usually it was an antibiotic, and only prescribed for a week or two.     Occasionally I would forget a pill, especially once I was feeling better and not so focused on the illness. I have seen many “older” folks with pill organizers.  You’ve seen them.  Those plastic boxes with multiple compartments marked with days and times.  I thought they were a helpful tool for those whose minds were slipping a bit. About a month ago, I started to take medicine, initially as a test to see if it improved my tremor, which would solidify the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.  The medicine, carbidopa / levodopa, did reverse the tremor when dosed high enough, but was also accompanied by significant side effects at that level.  However, at a lower dose, while the tremor persists, I have great improvement in back pain and bladder spasms, both well worth...

(As I review this in July 2025, I broke this down into three segments to make it more digestible!  Since now being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, in retrospect, many things make more sense.)     A physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient! Sir William Osler   My mother died of pancreatic cancer at age 65.  Her father also died of pancreatic cancer, as did his brother!  (And just last month, June 2025, my mom’s sister also died of pancreatic cancer.) This specter floats in the back of my mind!   When I was in my early 60’s, I visited my cousin, who was dying of esophageal cancer, at age 65.  His mother, the youngest sibling of my grandfather who died of pancreatic cancer remarked about the apparent curse on the Machnauer firstborns who died of cancer at age 65 (her son, my mother, my mother’s father).  I was the firstborn, and had 65 in the near future!  I am now 67, so I beat the curse, but ...

Yesterday I was reading the   daily meditation from the Center for Action and Contemplation .     This week’s theme was focused on Jonah.     Richard Rohr wrote:   … We have to be swallowed by something bigger than ourselves. The phrase used by many, including Thomas Merton, was that we have to go into the “belly of the beast”—a place where we are not in control, where we can’t fix it, explain it, understand it, or even like it. Our lack of control, our lack of preference isn’t important. We just have to learn from it.       Even though Richard Rohr was referring to adolescent male initiation into adulthood, this resonated with me as a description of aging!   Not much I can do about it!  Might as well learn from it!   Dave Drozek with Ruminations from Retirement

(As I review this in July 2025, I broke this down into three segments to make it more digestible!  Since now being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, in retrospect, many things make more sense.)   It is very easy to prescribe medications!  When learning about medications in medical school, generally we focus on the “indications” or reasons to use a specific drug.  But we tend to skim over at the overwhelming list of potential side effects or problems with a drug, especially when it only was reported in a small percentage of people.  However, with so many people on multiple medications, there are a lot of people with side effects and undetected interactions between drugs.  The patients often are not aware that what they are experiencing is related to their medication.  Unfortunately, many medical providers are equally unaware!   Often people take drugs for side effects of other drugs!  For example, the ubiqu...

  (As I review this in July 2025, I am breaking this down into three segments to make it more digestible!  Since now being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, in retrospect, many things make more sense.)     "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. Worrying is like paying a debt you don't owe. I have spent most of my life worrying about things that have never happened." Mark Twain   I have a tendency to worry, although I would like to deny that it is actually “worry”.  I’d prefer to call it something like “planning” or “being prepared”. I at times envy people who seem to go through life without a concern for the future, for the possibilities.   I often, maybe almost always, find myself concerned with the “what if”, to the point that it steals the joy of the moment.  This past year, while on a trip to Croatia, conscious of my tendency to worry, I purposefully planned to practice mindfuln...

The "little cliff," upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown himself down to rest that  the weightier portion of his body hung over it, while he was only kept from falling by the  tenure of his elbow on its extreme and slippery edge --this "little cliff" arose, a sheer  unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some fifteen or sixteen hundred feet from  the world of crags beneath us. Nothing would have tempted me to within half a dozen  yards of its brink. In truth so deeply was I excited by the perilous position of my  companion, that I fell at full length upon the ground, clung to the shrubs around me, and  dared not even glance upward at the sky --while I struggled in vain to divest myself of the  idea that the very foundations of the mountain were in danger from the fury of the winds.  It was long before I could reason myself into sufficient courage to sit up and look out into  the distance. From Poe’s Descent into the Ma...

Fifteen to 20 years ago, I lost most of my sense of smell.     It is hard to be exact on the timing; it kind of snuck up on me.     As I write this (July 2025), I am 68½ and just was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.  Getting the diagnosis was, in a sense, a relief.  That might strike some as strange!  I thought I had a more aggressive neurologic disease, such as ALS.  In comparison, Parkinson’s is a relief.  It actually makes sense of many symptoms I have had over at least the last 5 years, and maybe longer! For example, I read that people with Parkinson’s disease may have impairment in their sense of smell about 15 years before diagnosis.  I can’t pinpoint the date, but I remember that it first became obvious that I couldn’t smell well when I was a surgeon in Nelsonville.  One day when I cut open an anaerobic abscess in the operating room, all the OR staff complained bitterly of the nauseating ...

Origins and evolution of the meaning of words has always interested me.    Learning Spanish led to further intrigue, as I became more aware of Latin-based origins that made their way into English. Some English words seem too condensed, where multiple words in Spanish split out the distinctions a bit more elegantly.  For example, (I) “am” in English can be “soy” or “estoy” in Spanish, depending on the circumstance. Other words, that seem to have multiple relatively unrelated uses in English also have that distinction in Spanish.  The English word “hard” for instance, can mean both a solid, rigid substance, or something difficult, which might be somewhat related abstractly.  The Spanish word “duro” (think durable) also carries the same multiple meanings, and more. The English word “stock”, however really baffles me by its numerous seemingly disparate meanings.  Some can mentally be connected, but the relationship of others doesn’t seem app...