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Transcript

Parkinson’s Symptoms: The 5 Funniest Moments This Disease Has Put Me Through · Living with Parkinson’s | Bryce Perry

• 0:00
  You know what's funny? How something as simple as
• 0:03
  trying on a pair of socks can turn into a full blown workout
• 0:06
  routine. With Parkinson's, the things
• 0:09
  that used to take 10 seconds now come with strategy, stretching,
• 0:12
  and sometimes a little swearing. But here's the thing, you've got
• 0:17
  to laugh, because when you don't, it owns you.
• 0:21
  Well, today I'm going to share five of the funniest things that
• 0:23
  Parkinson's has ever made me do. Now, these moments were
• 0:26
  embarrassing. They were awkward and they and
• 0:29
  ridiculous at the time. But now, well, now they're proof
• 0:33
  that laughter keeps us moving And stick around to the end.
• 0:36
  Because I've got a challenge for you.
• 0:37
  And if and if enough of you take it, your stories might just
• 0:41
  become part of a future episode. Welcome to Living with
• 0:45
  Parkinson's, The Good, the Bad and the reality.
• 0:49
  Real talk, real life, real community with Bryce Perry.
• 0:54
  Let's begin. Well, welcome back to Living
• 0:58
  with Parkinson's, The good, the Bad and the Reality.
• 1:00
  If you're new here, welcome. My name is Bryce.
• 1:03
  And we've had over 1000, almost 2000 people join in the last few
• 1:06
  weeks. So it tells me that this
• 1:08
  community is growing faster than ever.
• 1:10
  And that's because we're not pretending to have it all
• 1:13
  together. Not here.
• 1:14
  Yeah. We're learning to laugh through
• 1:16
  it. Right.
• 1:16
  And if you've been here for a while, thank you.
• 1:19
  Thank you so much. You're the reason I keep showing
• 1:21
  up, camera in one hand, coffee in the other and probably 1 sock
• 1:25
  still missing, but I keep showing up and that's what you
• 1:28
  need to do, right? So wherever you are today, and
• 1:30
  if you showed up to watch this, it's just in the comments, just
• 1:33
  said I showed up. I showed up even if you didn't
• 1:35
  want to, I showed up. Put that in the comments.
• 1:38
  But let's get right into today's episode because I think this,
• 1:40
  you're going to have a lot of fun here.
• 1:41
  I know I'm going to have a lot of fun.
• 1:42
  I had a lot of fun thinking about these things.
• 1:43
  So hopefully you're going to enjoy it.
• 1:45
  But anyway, here is my story #5 right?
• 1:49
  So I call this the drive through disaster.
• 1:53
  OK, picture this, it's Monday morning, I'm running late.
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  Of course I'm feeling off, but I decide that coffee is going to
• 1:59
  fix everything, which is funny because I can barely hold the
• 2:03
  cup yet. I pull up to the drive through
• 2:05
  window. The girl leans out to take my
• 2:07
  change, and right on cue my hands start shaking like I'm
• 2:11
  trying to signal for a rescue. Coins go flying.
• 2:14
  One hits the door and one hits me and one hits the ground and
• 2:18
  I'm pretty sure one's still orbiting the car somewhere.
• 2:21
  She's trying not to laugh. I'm pretending that I meant to
• 2:23
  do it and when she finally hands me my coffee I think, OK, just
• 2:27
  act normal Bryce, just act normal.
• 2:30
  I go to take a sip, Tremor hits again.
• 2:32
  Half of it goes down the floor panel and at that point all I
• 2:36
  can do is look at her and say hey, at least it's freshly
• 2:39
  brewed car sense. Then she cracked up and I
• 2:42
  cracked up and honestly that's the moment I stopped caring what
• 2:45
  people think. Here's the take away.
• 2:50
  When you laugh. First, people relax.
• 2:53
  You teach them how to respond to your Parkinson's.
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  So if you've ever had a moment like that, hit that, hit that
• 2:58
  like button and comment coffee fail below.
• 3:01
  Because I know I'm not the only one who's been baptized, who
• 3:04
  baptized their coffee in caffeine.
• 3:07
  All right, here's story #2 I call this the sock wrestling
• 3:12
  match. Every morning, same routine.
• 3:15
  I take my meds, right? I lie in bed about, you know, 30
• 3:19
  minutes. I try to kind of get my, my, you
• 3:22
  know, get together, let my, my pills kick in, umm, right.
• 3:25
  And then I have to face down my biggest opponent, and they're my
• 3:30
  socks. So they just sit there on the
• 3:33
  floor and they mock me. OK.
• 3:35
  I bend down. I reach for one, and I freeze
• 3:37
  halfway there. I look like a statue that's
• 3:40
  reconsidering all of life's choices.
• 3:42
  Carmen walks by and says, are you OK?
• 3:44
  And I said, depends. You ever tried putting on a sock
• 3:47
  on your hand during doing the Macarena?
• 3:50
  It turns into a full blown match.
• 3:52
  Round one, me versus this, left sock.
• 3:55
  Round two, right sock. Round 3, Dignity.
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  And every morning I think maybe tomorrow I'll win this one
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  faster. I don't know, it drives me wild.
• 4:08
  But now I keep a grabber tool beside the bed.
• 4:10
  You know, not for the sock, but for when I when I inevitably
• 4:15
  drop it for the fifth time. But here's the truth, mornings
• 4:19
  are hard for everyone. Parkinson's.
• 4:20
  So give yourself time. Give yourself time.
• 4:23
  If you can relate to that, give yourself time.
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  Stretch before you move. And when you finally get that
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  sock on, celebrate it like you've just crossed the finish
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  line because some days that is the finish line.
• 4:35
  Oh my God. Well, if that's you and you have
• 4:37
  trouble with socks in the morning, how about this?
• 4:39
  How about hashtag sock puppets in the in the comments?
• 4:43
  Oh my God, let me know I'm not alone on this one.
• 4:46
  Crazy, crazy, crazy. OK, this is number 3.
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  And I, I've mentioned this before in a couple podcasts, but
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  I, I think that I want to, I, I need to repeat it again because
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  it's just, to me, it's just crazy.
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  But there are mornings when I wake up and I'm not totally sure
• 4:59
  what's real yet at all. My meds haven't kicked in and I
• 5:04
  can't move, but my brains already decided that I'm going
• 5:08
  to star in a movie. You know, one morning I was
• 5:11
  convinced I was trying. I was.
• 5:13
  I was convinced I was a cowboy. And I was trying to escape town
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  before the sheriff showed up. OK.
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  And I remember, you know, we were sitting by this.
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  I had Carmen was there. It was crazy, 'cause we're
• 5:23
  sitting by this open fire or a fire pit.
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  What do you call it? A fire, A fire pit?
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  A fire, A fire campfire. Oh, my gosh, a campfire.
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  I was sitting by the campfire and we were sitting there and
• 5:35
  she was talking to me and she was telling me about all the
• 5:37
  things that we had to get done today, right?
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  Like, and she was like going through a list and I was sipping
• 5:42
  on coffee. So she fingers I'm wide awake.
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  And so we're both sipping on coffee.
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  She's saying, no, we have to do this, then we're going to do
• 5:48
  this and we have to do this. And I'm and I'm guess I'm
• 5:50
  nodding away and I'm I'm paying attention and everything else.
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  And, and she said, so, you know, if it's OK with you, I'd like to
• 5:55
  get away a little bit early today.
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  And I'm like, for sure, no problem.
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  I said, I'll tell you what, if you put out the campfire, right,
• 6:02
  I'll go Get Shorty and we'll go unhook the horses and then we'll
• 6:05
  come and we'll grab you and we'll go.
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  And she's like, huh. And I'm like, yeah, just, you
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  know, if you just, you put out the campfire to get some water
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  or whatever and I'll grab the horses.
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  Shorty and I are going to grab the horses and we're going to
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  go. And then all of a sudden she
• 6:18
  kicks in like I'm Oh my gosh, he's not, he's not awake.
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  So she's like, OK, sure thing, partner.
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  And and then she goes to put on the coffee because she knows
• 6:25
  we're not going anywhere for a while.
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  You know, 10 minutes later, I realized I'm not in the Wild
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  West, I'm in Winnipeg. No horses, just me frozen in bed
• 6:34
  arguing with my brain about saddles and dopamine.
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  And honestly, that's Parkinson's in a nutshell.
• 6:41
  Your body's on pause, but your brain's still writing the
• 6:43
  sequel. Isn't that interesting?
• 6:45
  The serious part? Well, that's what an off period
• 6:48
  feels like. You're awake, you're alert when
• 6:50
  you're trapped. So when it happens, breathe,
• 6:53
  don't fight it, wait it out and laugh later when you realize how
• 6:57
  weird the brain can get. And Carmen still calls me cowboy
• 7:01
  when I'm having a slow morning, which, you know, that feels
• 7:04
  fair. I think I'm fulfilling some type
• 7:06
  of cowboy fantasy with I don't know.
• 7:08
  Anyway, anyway, how about that wild dreams, wild dreams.
• 7:14
  How about just, you know, wild, just wild dreams in the in the
• 7:17
  comments. And I wanted I want to hear
• 7:18
  yours. You had a wild one like that.
• 7:20
  Let's let's hear it. I mean, come on, you're laughing
• 7:22
  at me. I'm not like I'm laughing at me.
• 7:24
  You're laughing at me. But come on, you know, man up,
• 7:28
  grow up, woman up. Come beside me.
• 7:30
  So I'm not the only one. That's what we're laughing
• 7:32
  about. So anyway, just put it, you
• 7:34
  know, I'd love to hear your crazy dreams if you have them
• 7:36
  like that. OK, here's number.
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  Here's the next one. I call this one the texting
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  disaster. OK, so I'm trying to text a
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  buddy, you know? Hey, hey, just leaving now,
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  right? Except what I actually said is,
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  hey, just loving cow. Now he's confused.
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  I'm confused. And Carmen's laughing so hard
• 7:53
  that she can't even breathe. I try to fix it.
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  And, you know, the stupid thing hits again.
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  And now he's got hey, just loving cow followed by hey, just
• 8:03
  loving cow again. He replies.
• 8:06
  Bryce, is everything OK at home? And I'm going, what the heck?
• 8:10
  I mean, I must have, I must have changed it 17 times.
• 8:13
  I could never get it right. And finally I just go forget the
• 8:17
  cow. And the response goes back from
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  to for my buddy, he's like, well, that was a short romance,
• 8:25
  you know, funny, cracks me up, but crazy, right?
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  You know, And that's the kind of moment that either makes you
• 8:33
  throw your phone or laugh until you cry.
• 8:35
  And I'm going to be honest with you now, I've done both.
• 8:41
  I've done both. But now I choose just to laugh.
• 8:45
  I really do. Because what's worse for me now
• 8:48
  is that when I finally say to myself, forget it, my hands are
• 8:52
  not working. I do the talk to text thing.
• 8:56
  And I don't know if that's any better or worse, to be honest
• 8:59
  with you. It's just crazy.
• 9:02
  So anyway, honestly, autocorrect plus Parkinson's Tremor could
• 9:06
  write its own sitcom. It really could.
• 9:07
  So if you've ever had your phone make you look insane, drop
• 9:12
  hashtag text, fail, hashtag text, fail in the comments.
• 9:17
  And here's a pro tip, right? Voice notes.
• 9:21
  Game changer. Less typing, fewer cows.
• 9:26
  And that's better than trying to to do it in real time because
• 9:29
  that's a mess too. Voice, you know, that voice,
• 9:32
  that voice notes. You can do it.
• 9:33
  You can take your time. Edit it all out, you know, just
• 9:36
  let your friends know that, you know, when they say something to
• 9:38
  you like, hey, how's it, You know, hey, are you almost here?
• 9:41
  And all you want to say to them is, yeah, I'll be there in a
• 9:43
  couple minutes. Let let they know.
• 9:44
  It's going to probably take you longer to say you'll be there in
• 9:47
  a couple minutes, then you'll actually be there.
• 9:49
  Right. So it's unbelievable.
• 9:51
  But thanks Parkinson's for that one.
• 9:54
  OK, how about this This one I call the grocery store Tango.
• 9:58
  Now this one's a personal favorite.
• 10:00
  So I'm at the grocery store with Carmen doing fine.
• 10:02
  And I'm pushing the cart and suddenly my right leg freezes
• 10:06
  like mid step and my left leg's still going.
• 10:08
  So I'm doing like this half shuffle thing and I half slide
• 10:11
  that looks like I'm inventing a new dance move.
• 10:14
  People are watching Carmen's pretending she doesn't know me,
• 10:16
  like, And I'm just like, fine, I'm going to own it.
• 10:19
  I'm actually going to own it. So I grab the cart, start
• 10:21
  stretching like it's all part of the plan.
• 10:23
  I must look ridiculous, but I'm just like saying I'm just
• 10:26
  practicing my balance exercises. Come on, everybody wants to join
• 10:29
  me. You know, the truth is I was 1
• 10:31
  avocado away from falling into guacamole into the guacamole
• 10:35
  display. It was wild.
• 10:38
  And I'm I'm not see, I want to I want you to understand
• 10:40
  something. You're sitting here kind of
• 10:42
  going like, OK, we know Bryce is crazy, right?
• 10:45
  So you're you're part of the club here.
• 10:46
  You know I'm nuts or you're going to go and like, OK, that's
• 10:51
  something. That's a Bryce thing.
• 10:52
  That's not a me thing. Well, let me tell you something
• 10:55
  that is not a Bryce thing. Bryce is the guy that wouldn't
• 10:59
  tell anybody. He had this thing for years,
• 11:01
  didn't want to talk about Parkinson's, didn't want to show
• 11:03
  Parkinson's, didn't want a spotlight on him.
• 11:05
  Bryce is not the guy that wants to dance around and stretch out
• 11:08
  like he's doing some type of weird routine in the middle of
• 11:10
  the grocery store. I don't want that type of
• 11:12
  attention. Do I like to be the center of
• 11:14
  attention sometimes? Sure.
• 11:16
  But I'd like to be the center of attention with, you know,
• 11:19
  speaking or my skills or or my intelligence.
• 11:22
  I don't want to be the center of attention.
• 11:25
  People watching me thinking I'm making a fool of myself.
• 11:26
  But in these moments now it's when you throw it to the window
• 11:31
  and say, who the hell cares? Why not?
• 11:34
  You know what, why not? And so I start doing these
• 11:37
  things now and it's so out of character for me.
• 11:39
  But you know, when I told you this before in that last in one
• 11:41
  of the videos, he was a podcast last podcaster or the podcast
• 11:44
  before, you know, we do something that pushes us outside
• 11:46
  our comfort zone. It actually releases dopamine.
• 11:49
  So hey, I like a dopamine hit. I love dopamine hit.
• 11:52
  So I do it now. I really do.
• 11:54
  And I almost, it was crazy. I almost knocked down this
• 11:56
  entire guacamole display. It was wild, you know?
• 12:00
  But again, you got to change your mind.
• 12:03
  Shit mind, shit mindset. You have to change your mindset,
• 12:07
  right? Embarrassment only lasts a
• 12:10
  minute. Pride lasts the whole day.
• 12:13
  Say that again. Embarrassment only lasts a
• 12:15
  minute, but pride will last the whole day.
• 12:18
  So now if I freeze in public, I just tell myself I'm I just tell
• 12:21
  myself I'm not stuck. I am just pausing for either
• 12:24
  applause or dramatic effect. Now, before we wrap up, let's
• 12:29
  hear from Carmen because she's got her own take on this, this
• 12:32
  circus in Carmen's care partner corner.
• 12:35
  So if you're a care partner, this one is for you.
• 12:38
  So she says that she said hi, everyone.
• 12:39
  It's Carmen. Living with Bryce means every
• 12:42
  day comes with a surprise. Yes, it does.
• 12:44
  OK, sometimes it's serious, but most days it's crazy funny.
• 12:49
  The grocery store dance, the sock matches and the cowboy
• 12:52
  mornings, they're all part of our story.
• 12:55
  And here's what I've learned. Laughing doesn't mean you're
• 12:57
  ignoring the hand, the hard parts.
• 13:00
  It means you're choosing joy in spite of them.
• 13:03
  So if you're a care partner watching this, try to laugh when
• 13:05
  you can, because that laughter is what keeps you both grounded.
• 13:10
  Right on. Thank you, Carmen.
• 13:11
  That's awesome. She's right, laughter doesn't
• 13:14
  fix Parkinson's, but it sure as hell makes living with it a lot
• 13:17
  easier, doesn't it? So here's my challenge to you.
• 13:20
  Share that funniest moment in the comments that you've ever
• 13:23
  had. Let's fill this page with
• 13:24
  stories that make people smile. And if we get enough, I'll make
• 13:28
  a full episode just about your moments and your comments, your
• 13:31
  moments, your funny moments. Let's bring them out.
• 13:33
  Let's, let's just make fun of Parkinson's, not of ourselves,
• 13:37
  not fools of us, fun of Parkinson's, OK?
• 13:41
  And hit that subscribe button, you know, while you're while
• 13:43
  you're there, because next week we're going to shift gears.
• 13:46
  We're going to talk, we're going to talk about how humor and
• 13:48
  honesty can actually change how people see Parkinson's.
• 13:52
  And if you want to go deeper, you know where we talk, we laugh
• 13:55
  and we keep each other going. Check out the inner circle.
• 13:57
  There's a three day trial on there.
• 13:59
  You can free, free three day, three free 3 day free trial.
• 14:03
  So that's check out the inner circle.
• 14:05
  The link is in the descriptions and in the comments.
• 14:08
  And it's where we share that real stuff, the winds, the walls
• 14:13
  and everything in between. The best part of right now,
• 14:15
  we're coming in a circle is you get to meet Margaret.
• 14:18
  Margaret is this awesome, awesome welcome welcomer.
• 14:20
  And she'll make you feel right at home.
• 14:22
  So come on in. The link's in the description.
• 14:24
  And along with the boot camp, I almost didn't want to announce
• 14:29
  it or didn't want to even mention it.
• 14:30
  I think there is one spot left. I think there's one spot left in
• 14:32
  the boot camp. So if you want it, it's
• 14:34
  starting. What's the date?
• 14:36
  It's starting in a week. So one spot left for boot camp,
• 14:39
  come on in. And then it's going to be shut
• 14:41
  down South. Now you've made it through all
• 14:44
  of that to this. Here's today's pricism with
• 14:49
  Parkinson's. Laughing isn't avoiding the hard
• 14:51
  stuff. It's how you keep moving through
• 14:54
  it. It's your vehicle, so get in it.
• 14:57
  Don't let it pass you by. All righty, there you go.
• 15:00
  So next time, till next time, I want you to keep laughing.
• 15:02
  I want you to keep showing up. And boy, oh boy, do I want you
• 15:05
  to keep doing life today. We'll see you later.