Even though my father spent the majority of his professional years as an educator, he’s always been a cowboy to me. Maybe it was because he taught animal science. Or maybe it goes back to the time he raised and sold bulls for a cattle company in Oregon.
I can still recall my early elementary years when he would go on work trips to various parts of the West. I would envision him riding the wild, stormy ranges on his horse, Bill (or “Mr. Bill,” as we kids called him). I drew pictures of him and stuck them to the door for him to find when he would return, usually late at night.
Then there’s the man today, almost 40 years later, the man who recently showed my 9-year-old daughter how to build a wooden frame for a picture she had drawn for her Nana.
They were using power tools, but I wasn’t worried. Cowboys are sometimes a little wild, a little crazy, but they usually know what they’re doing when it comes to potential danger.
Even when they have Parkinson’s disease.
But it wasn’t smooth sailing from the beginning. When things started going bad for my father about 15 years ago, before the Parkinson’s diagnosis, he and my mom sought a single answer on which to pin the pain and frustration. But it turned out to be two different things—maybe related, maybe not. One was chronic pain finally flaring up, something from those wild and crazy cowboy days—and a refusal to slow down much as he grew older.
Maybe the pain had been an early harbinger of what was to come—a prelude to a diagnosis that ultimately landed my father with nearly 1 million other Americans with the second most common neurological disorder after Alzheimer’s.
You don’t have to fight to be a man
Before it was Mr. Bill, my dad was riding another old horse: our Ford Bronco. I remember riding around on sunny days with the windows open and country music blaring.
My dad listened to a lot of outlaw Country music. Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash were mainstays in the Bronco. Even though Kenny Rogers is only considered to be at the fringes of that genre at best, we listened to a lot of him too. And one song in particular imprinted itself in my memories.
In “Coward of the County,” a dying father tells his son Tommy not to live the life the father had lived.
It won’t mean you’re weak if you turn the other cheek
I hope you’re old enough to understand
Son, you don’t have to fight to be a man.
I was never raised to fight. Although I know my father was in a scuffle or two in his younger years, he never bragged about it, and I’ve never been in a fight in my life. Maybe it was that song.
But since my father’s Parkinson’s diagnosis, there have been times—a lot of them—when I’ve wanted to punch something, even someone, if I thought it could change the injustice of watching my dad, the cowboy, a man who lived by the rough strength of his body, losing control of that very body.
At the end of “Coward of the County,” Tommy has no other choice. Sometimes you gotta fight when you’re a man.
And then you fight like hell.
My father could’ve thrown in the towel along with that diagnosis, but that’s never been his style. While he admits he languished in denial at the beginning, “trying to prove I was the one person who could continue to do everything I did before getting Parkinson’s,” he never stopped exploring his options and opening his mind to trying new things.
Sometimes the fight is about more than one man
In 2014, my father learned about Rock Steady Boxing, an international program using noncontact boxing to combat the effects of Parkinson’s, but at that point, the nearest program was about 200 miles away. Already being a fighter, rather than giving up and denying himself the only thing known to slow, delay or even possibly reverse the symptoms, he decided he would start his own program in Cedar City, Utah.
Armed with notes—including the Rock Steady website URL—and his walking stick, he took the idea to the Utah Center for Rural Health on the campus of Southern Utah University, where the director said it sounded like something they “should try.”
Thus was born the seeds of the Southwest Parkinson’s Fitness Alliance. One year after launching, the program had already doubled in participation. Rock Steady boxing is still the centerpiece of the program three days a week, but it also includes LSVT BIG-inspired movements and yoga on the non-boxing days.
The association with the university has made the program a popular avenue for students to complete community service requirements while learning first-hand about Parkinson’s by interacting with Rock Steady boxers—and maybe become the next generation of advocates or researchers.
There is no stopping Parkinson’s—at least for now—but my dad is beating it back every step of the way and helping others do the same. After nearly 17 months on this new journey, he was able to cut back on his medication, stopped using a cane and most days has the energy he needs to get through the day.
I don’t know if it is entirely a result of the boxing. As I said, he opened his mind and is trying a mix of some different schools of thought on healing, both Western and Eastern. And along with his new “diet” of making knuckle sandwiches, he and my mom have also largely switched to eating more Mediterranean cuisine. Much less red meat than I grew up on.
These aren’t things you might expect from an old cowboy. But like I said, cowboys may be wild and crazy, but they usually know what they’re doing.
And when it comes to Parkinson’s, the cowboy I remember from being a young kid, riding those wild ranges on Mr. Bill, is fighting back. As a parent now myself, I have seen this come full circle. Neither my 7-year-old son nor 9-year-old daughter thinks their Papa’s occasional tics are unusual. In their eyes, he’s tougher than men half his age (I know this because they’ve pointed out some of them and said, “I bet Papa is stronger than that guy.”)
But while I’ve always thought of him as a cowboy, now at 73 years old, he has a different profession to my kids.
“Hey Daddy, when Papa retired, he became a boxer, right?” my daughter asked me one day as we were driving back from visiting my parents. She proudly held the frame my dad had sent home with her to decorate for Nana.
“Yup,” I said. “He sure did.”
***
You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project
Compliments Men Want to Hear More Often | Relationships Aren’t Easy, But They’re Worth It | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | ..A Man’s Kiss Tells You Everything |
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: iStock
In July last year, I started on PARKINSON DISEASE TREATMENT PROTOCOL from Kykuyu Health Clinic One month into the treatment, I made a significant recovery. After I completed the recommended treatment, almost all my symptoms were gone, great improvement with my movement and balance. Its been a year, life has been amazing (ww w. kykuyuhealthclinic. c om).