Good Morning

  Those of us in this tightly knit community we call PWP's (people with Parkinson's to the the unfamiliar), understand that no two of us may share the same symptoms. Much like everyone has unique personalities, we each have a unique and specialized menu of characteristics which define our brand of PD. Sort of like a menu of delectable appetizers and main courses. The difference with us, is that a waiter didn't approach our table grinning from ear to ear offering us the special of the day. Instead, somebody else appears to have ordered for us. So we eat each days servings either with a smile or without. My choice is to either chow down or choke on some of the crap the waiter brought, either way with a smile.
  Now that we have that out of the way, I'd like to share some thoughts on my menu of yummies. In particular, my morning breakfast for each morning of any given day. Have I lost you yet? Just in case, allow me to explain. I typically have two mornings to each day. The first comes around 3:00 am when, for no explainable reason, the waitress comes and wakes me up for the breakfast appetizer. I am up for a few hours, then go back to bed. Later, the waitress nudges again and lets me know it's actually daytime and time to eat the breakfast for the day. Hence, two morning and two breakfasts. For my very first blog offered to you kind reader, I would like to focus on morning #2 of the day. Ready? Here we go.
  The brain wakes up before I do and decides to send the message that it is ready to go, to my body. It is my body which then decides to wake me up in the rudest way possible. I remember as a teenager, my room was in the basement of our house. When I would be running late for school, or when mom would want my attention, she would stomp on the kitchen floor upstairs sending sounds of thunder right down to my room. Very rude, when engaged in dreams of pretty girls. This is very similar to how my body approaches waking me into full awareness. A surprise attack from the netherworld which cramps most of the muscles in my body and make my toes curl up in a knot. All together, not a very pleasant experience. I now work on pure instinct, not yet fully aware that every other part of me is awake with the exception of the thinking parts. I reach for the pill case on the night stand next to the bed, flip it open (hopefully without spilling the precious cargo all over the floor. Then again, the results might be interesting considering our dog likes to sniff around the floor for any magic food that might appear). I then lay around in bed being completely lazy despite the fact the thinking parts are now wide awake and thinking thoughts at the speed of thought.
  Then it happens. I feel the pills start to work magic and slip my feet into the pair of shoes I keep by the bed.  This is a little trick I learned from Michael J Fox. It makes my toes un crunch and prepares my feet for touching the floor. After a few (or more) unsteady moments of waiting for the morning's cocktail to kick in, I am ready to start the day on the right foot. Mainly because the left is still a bit uncooperative. By now voluntary and involuntary muscles have relaxed to the point where I head off to the bathroom. I don't think there is any reason to provide details here. But, at the end I face myself and the manager who comes over to the table and awards free desserts for good behavior and for being such a loyal customer. I am mostly relaxed now and ready to take the rest of the day on with the smile I now wear on the outside and the inside.