Rolf Lulloff - Parkinson's, the Brain, and "Fighting the Damn Disease" - Ep. #7

0:16 That means I get paid double, right? Yeah, yeah, Zero times. Double of zero. Yeah. Double I was. I was surprised you didn't run here this morning. Pardon. I was surprised you didn't. I thought you were going to come running up to my door this morning. Yeah. I don't smell good then? No, you know, I'm still on a little bit. I'm, I'm in a recovery mode yet, so I've got to take it easy yet. But I I I'm ready to run it. Yesterday was going to be my first day of of doing some easy running, but then it started to rain and I got lazy. Sure. Because what it was within the last couple years, you said you did your last Boston Marathon, right? Well, I tried.

0:59 I did my last Boston Marathon in 2014, and I was 72. And my best Boston Marathon I did when I was 36. When I did it in 72 or when I was 72. Twice. Exactly twice as old. It took me exactly twice as long. Really. Yeah, So. And I ran the entire way. But you know, my body at age 72 is not what it was when I was 36.

1:42 Furthermore, I was perfectly trained. God smiled, and Anne allowed me to do it. Yeah, well, she got a nice Saint John John knit out of it, so. Yeah, she knew what she was doing, yeah. How how many have you done? I did Boston four times. I've done 12 marathons. I did New York one time. I didn't run my first marathon until I was 32 and we were in service, so I had time to train. And that was the a year and a half after Frank Shorter won the Olympic marathon.

2:23 And when I saw him do that, I said I can run a marathon. So. And you. And you hadn't. Did you run for pleasure before that? Yeah, well, I ran for fitness, For pleasure. I guess running for pleasure, that's kind of, that's a maybe an oxymoron. I don't know. Well, no, it isn't. You get addicted to it. Yeah, you and it physical exercise to share your brain if you do it correctly, because you stimulate your muscles, produce certain chemicals including BDNF, brain derived neurotrophic factor and that stimulates all sorts of things metabolically in our body, but in the brain it stimulates new new new nerve formation and new strengthening of the electrical connections between nerves.

3:24 That's sort of a little bit wrong, because it's chemical electric connections. Nerves communicate both with a combination of electricity and with chemical processes. Ultimately, it's probably all electric, but what stimulates the electrical passages are chemical changes as well. So it is. It is phenomenally fascinating. And there's no doubt that got me really interested. And especially with Anne and her Parkinson's.

4:06 And we learned, we learned how to train her brain because her brain is suffering like a smoldering fire now. It's not a fire, but yet it is sort of a fire in a way, because it's a chemical process and it's an electrical process that gets disturbed. Well, that's how the brain works. So all of a sudden, for some reason, these proteins, which are both structural and functional, your house is a structure. Do your walls move? No.

4:48 Do you open your refrigerator door to get something out? It's electrical. It's all sorts of things that we take for granted and we take for granted our brains, because our brains are chemical, they are electrical, but they're also automatic. Our brain works whether we're thinking about them or not, whether we're directing them or not. So you get going with it. And it's just so amazing. The universe is phenomenally complex. Our brains are equally complex.

5:36 We don't understand everything about the universe and we don't understand everything about our brain, not. Even close to either one. That's right. And we're learning. We are learning, and that's was exciting, and writing the book about Anne and what we learned. Yeah, yeah. I'm so excited to talk about that. When we got a chance to connect, I I learned so much just in that little conversation. I'm excited to talk. I I think we'd probably be remiss to not start with how you and Anne met though I I think that kind of starts the story, right? So you were in medical school at the time?

6:16 I was going into medical school, yeah. I was a wet behind the ears 21 year old pre Med student and got into medical school because my grains were good, my grades were good and I studied hard. I played too but as any college students would and so I got accepted after three years. So here I am. I turned 21 about three months before the summer started. I was going to start medical school in September at Madison and I needed a job and I got a job in the research lab sponsored program by the government to stimulate medical students to think about research. So I started in this lab middle of June, and that day at 4:00 in the afternoon and walks this cute gal who had just graduated from UW.

7:27 Four years that, and she was actually a year and a half older than I was. And her degree was in medical technology. She was a medical technologist, work in the labs. They do the blood testing, Urines testing, all sorts of things like that, and it qualifies them to do a lot of things in the laboratories, in hospitals and clinics and things like that. So she was from lacrosse and she started up or transferred to Madison. And so I have. I did not know her at all. And I immediately learned that she had a steady boyfriend, which was an important thing to know. And what was she doing in our lab? She had the intern in the hospital lab for three months so she could get her license to work in hospitals. And she had already taken a job in Milwaukee, get interviewed and taken a job in Milwaukee at a hospital lab there. I didn't know that at the time.

8:40 So she and I met I. So we were on a first name basis. She'd come in at 4:00 every afternoon to clean the lab. The messes that the other medical student and I would make. Just say hi, how are you? 5 weeks later. I walk into the lab on a Thursday morning and the other medical student was there and he said, Ralph, are you dating anyone? And I said no. He said you should ask Anne out. And I said now she's got a steady boyfriend. He said they broke up last week. I could not get anything accomplished that day knowing that she'd be there at 4:00 and when she would come at 4:00.

9:26 If she had worked in the lab all day and didn't have time to change, she'd have her white uniform on, which form fitted her very nicely. And if she'd had time to change, she'd always have Bermuda shorts and a white blouse that was never tucked in. And so I said, I am. Hi Ralph, how are you? Fine. And you? Fine. How would you like to go out and have a couple of beers? She gives me a dirty look, and my initial reaction immediately was, you are. Who told you that I broke up. That was my initial reaction, and I think it was indeed true.

10:08 I never asked her that. It's interesting. I wish I would have pursued some of what was going on in her mind at that time. And she immediately she got a smile on her face and she said I'd like that. So I walked to her, the apartment that she was staying at, which is only three blocks from the hospital, and we walked down the State Street to the pub, a beer bar, sat in the booth on the left side. I remember all these things so vividly, and we talked nonstop. We had so many things that we were interested in. She was an excellent tennis player. I'd like to run a little bit.

10:49 I'd been athletically active in high school, but not in college, and so she said we just hit it off. We both had to work the next day, which was a Friday. So we walked back to the apartment. I was trying to think how think what I was going to say to her. And with that she looks at me and says, might I expect that I'd be seeing you again? I thought, wow, I said I'd like that, she said so would I, And we immediately embraced and kissed. I can tell you that was the the most powerful kiss I ever had in my life.

11:33 It wasn't messy, It was just an intense welcome to you. I'm attracted. And 51 weeks later we were married. So that's the story of how we met, and it was special. Absolutely. And then you ended up, I believe, going to Milwaukee from there. That's where your kind of next step was, right? Well, yeah, we. So she had to go to Milwaukee and obviously we're not, we're not engaged or anything. We were dating. So August we're together or we date because she's still finishing up her internship. Early September she moves to Milwaukee. I had a car, so I wasn't going to let her go. Did I plan at that time to marry her? No.

12:36 But I can tell you the night of our first date, as I walked back to the where I was staying, I thought, this is an amazing lady. I could marry her. And so I would go down to Milwaukee once a month. And once a month she would bring ride the Badger bus from Milwaukee to Madison and stay with friends. And so we dated twice a month. And yeah, we, we went through the challenges, you know, JFK president that was assassinated.

13:17 That was the weekend in which I was going to Milwaukee to visit her. And so it was the most somber weekend. And we were also going to go to the Packer game, because the Packers played three games a year in Milwaukee at that time, and my parents had season tickets for that. So we went to the game again, a somber game. The NFL. The AFL. Because there were two separate leagues, the AFL cancelled all their games that weekend. The NFL had them, but without any celebrations, you know, and it was just a somber weekend, you know, you feel like you got hit in the stomach so hard that you'd never get over it.

14:06 In fact, you don't ever get over it. It was just such a tragedy. So we get to January and it was the time of saying, OK, are you just going to keep twiddling your thumbs in this relationship? Because our relationship was growing, but it was also growing to the point that it was not being stagnant, but it needed some direction and it had to come from me. Her response to everything I did was wonderful, but she had not said long term. Excuse me, he had not said, said, what are we? Where are we going with this?

15:01 And over the Christmas holidays we were apart and I thought about it. So I go down the middle of January and we're sitting there talking, having a Manhattan, no, I'm, I'm away for the weekend. So I I can relax, don't have to study that much. And I said let's get married. And she was shocked. And she said what? And I said let's get married. And she said, are you serious?

15:42 And I said yes. Are you sure? I said yes, she said. I accept. I didn't ask her father. You know it was not the traditional get down on your knees and so and we that's January. So she moved back to Madison in March and took her job at University Hospitals in the lab that she then turned with and every every place she worked she she did well and they loved her and so and we're married the middle of July. I'm starting my second year of medical school, so she's working.

16:34 So we have income to live, live on. And we had over the next nine years we had three children all born in Madison. And when I did my orthopedic residency, which is in Madison, we were able to have an stay home with the kids because I was making enough money with my stipend and moonlighting in an emergency room to keep a solvent. And so that got us to the end of or to the summer of 1972. We've been married then eight years and then two years later or for two years at from that summer we I had to serve in the US Army for two years so I was at Fort Dix, NJ and and and the kids came with us too and the military was it was a wonderful time for us.

17:51 Vietnam was essentially over. If I'd have been one year earlier in my training, I would have been sent to Vietnam and I would have, I would have gone no, no ifs, ands or buts about it. And Anne understood that too. We would not have been thrilled, but you know, serve your country. And our experience in at Vortex, New Jersey was awesome. I was one of five fully trained orthopedic surgeons. It was a big Army hospital, a lot of retired people. So you had a good spectrum of ages to take care of, yet you weren't worked to death.

18:34 And that's when I started to run more. And but Anne blossomed. She blossomed every place we went. She was such a good, good, wonderful wife, wonderful mother and a wonderful friend of people. And she had the ability to communicate so well with them. You know, sometimes you don't know how to break the ice when you meet somebody for the first time and get to know them. And she wasn't nosy. She just was honest and so. Yeah, I think that's super interesting. Can we take a quick sidebar there? Vietnam was wrapping up as you were doing that and you said you were treating a lot of retired folks. Is that retired military?

19:19 Yes. People. So. So were you seeing some of the people? Coming back from Vietnam? Absolutely. OK, That had to be pretty poignant and Oh yeah, heavy at times. Well, in in had that experience it. Even when I was an orthopaedic residence in Madison, I was at the VA hospital for six months, and in comes a a young Army general, general, Army person who'd been injured in Vietnam.

20:01 He stepped on a landmine. Paramedics were right there to save his life, lost his leg at the hip, severe injuries to his left arm. He was in shock. He was pulseless, non breather. They resuscitated him, called for the the helicopter. In the 1st 24 hours he had 30 pints of blood. If that had happened any place in the United States on the street, there's no way would have survived. The service made you so proud of what they do. They are pros.

20:53 They're pros at saving their people. And that's exactly what happened to this kid. How is he? When I see him totally alert? A wonderful kid. Yeah, he has no leg. His elbow's a little bit stiff. And you say, wow, this makes me proud to be somebody that can care for people, but it makes me proud of our country and our military. You can say, well, it was a bad war. Yeah, it was. All wars are bad, but sometimes they're necessary. And I'm not saying that that war was necessary. It's just like what we're dealing with right now with two wars going on, and it's such a tragedy that human beings are more animals than in violent, like you with your two cats. The one is really nice and the one isn't so much. That's right.

21:56 But the but people are like that you know and so and at any rate if I'd have gone if I'd have gone in the in been sent to Vietnam, I'm sure I would have been exposed to similar similar stories. I took care of a active duty Air Force person that was the only survivor in a plane crash in in Spain right next to Fort Dix. IS was a big Air Force Base and so we supplied all their healthcare and a military transport had had about 2020 people on it would fly from New Jersey hauling military equipment to Turkey.

22:58 So it stopped three or four places to refuel. And this plane was, it was coming back and it's the middle of the night and who knows what what happened, but the guy I took care of was a one of the two navigators on the plane and he was not on on on duty right then. The other one was and they're coming in to refuel at AUS Air base in Spain 2:00 AM and they crash.

23:41 Nobody knows why that plane came down 30 miles short of the airport. But then they they look at the radar and they could see it's going down, down, down. What's Is a pilot dead? Is is a pilot asleep? What What's going on? And of course, they probably didn't have the backup systems in airplanes that automatically would wake everybody up. Who knows? Everybody was killed except this one guy and his He was strapped in his seat, sleeping, and it was thrown out, clear of all the other wreckage. And so there were 30 miles from the Air Force Base people nearby here at the crash Spaniards and they and they know that it's a military thing.

24:41 So they call the air base and they era back him to Frankfurt to the big Army hospital. And he he never had to be resuscitated, but he had multiple orthopedic injuries and then was sent back to the States. And I took care of them. And it's interesting because when I was working part time at Prevail, I showed up one day and they said, oh, we got some of your mail here and I'm going through the mail. This guy survived obviously and tracked me down wondered because they were writing a book about the plane crash and he tracked me down.

25:36 He lived in Michigan and we've been in contact ever since. So not not nearly the drama of the poor guy that lost his leg, but still very, very interesting. And and Annie was so supportive of everything that I did and helped keep me focused on what was needed. I never heard her say I hate your job because you're never here on when you're on call. Yeah. So you were in New Jersey for two years and then was Green Bay your next step after that? And and then somewhere coming up here, she starts showing some type of symptoms, right, and doesn't know what's going on. How did the how did that play out when we came back from New Jersey and was it was 1974, the summer of 1974. So Anne was 34, I was 32 and we looked around for a place to practice and we we liked Green Bay. So I joined what was the Westside clinic at that time their their first orthopedic surgeon. It was a clinic with 15 doctors, a multi specialty doctors and I liked the setup they had so and

27:10 didn't have to work. I was going to be working full time. The kids are at that time our oldest one is 8 then 5 1/2 and three so and was full time. Mom charged with the house. Excellent tennis player and we lived in Park de Langley in Alloway and she immediately started to play tennis and that opened up a huge number of contacts and people. And within weeks we're so busy socially and and the community welcomed us.

27:58 You know, back then there were I think 4 clinics, but we all got along and we communicated. So we are welcomed by doctors from other clinics too and socially and that one, that one very well. So for the next, basically 2, two, 2 1/2 years, we were fine. So we moved to the house that we've stayed in ever since in the summer of 1976. So it's the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, so a big celebration that summer and late that fall, early winter, and lost her sense of smell abruptly, she said.

28:54 I can't smell anything so I thought this needs to be checked out, as did she. And so we saw a good ear, nose and throat specialist and he said I can't find anything, it has to be neurologic. He referred us to a good neurologist. He said I can't find anything but it still has to be neurologic. And he got a scan of her brain and there was that technology was available, not nearly as as good technically as it is now. And that didn't show anything wrong either.

29:37 So he said we'll just have to watch it along over the next 13 years. She had what I call, and which is commonly called in neurological centers, the non motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Back then, nobody knew, to the best of my knowledge, that losing the sense of smell was a very common for symptom of Parkinson's. Now we know that is true. So over those 13 years, we're seeing our kids grow up to the point that our oldest daughter is in college and then the next one's in college and then the third one's in college.

30:28 And so we have an empty nest. As a man, we don't think much about empty nest syndromes. You know, we we're busy. For a mother that loves her kids, this was emotionally tough. And that. So the the nest was empty by 1989. By by the summer of 1989, OK, that summer we celebrated our twenty, our 25th wedding anniversary, and we'd had a wonderful 25 years. But you got to go back then, when she lost her sense of smell.

31:13 What happened then? For those 13 years, from the time she was 36 until she was 49, she had panic attacks, nervous, she she loved to shop. She'd go into a mall. She was terrified. She'd walk, holding onto the walls. And she said, I can barely shop. And for her to say that was a big deal and she was depressed. So we saw a good psychiatrist. They put her in antidepressant medicines, but they didn't know what caused it other than just she's depressed. So she had symptoms.

32:00 She had other symptoms when she was driving the car, she'd say. I'm having trouble focusing my eyes. It's like there's two roads and I've got to turn out. Where do I turn here? Am I turning too soon? Am I turning too late? Weird. And it's all good. Eye specialist and I couldn't find anything. This is all neurologic. These things were smoldering away, but they weren't what was classically known then. Parkinson's disease dreamers. The slowness of movement, A stiffness or a balance.

32:47 So. Those were the identifying factors of at that time and those were years and years away. Yet that that's not something you're even close to experiencing at that time, right? Well, they they were starting to appear in the 1989 that when Anne was 49. And meanwhile while this was going on, her mother was in her early 80s and was going downhill rapidly. And she had a little tremor, a little shakiness that she lived in lacrosse where Anne was born. And Anne would say numerous times, I'm going to end up just like my mother. Well, we are like our our mothers, but she got to end up with, with the shakiness and the things like that that her mother had.

33:46 Her mother saw a neurologist and he said you don't have Parkinson's disease, you've got a tremor. Well, I quietly felt she had Parkinson's disease all along and in the end she had to be in a nursing home with total care and actually had a feeding tube because she couldn't swallow and became essentially vegetative. And so that that was a quiet worry today. And I talk about that. No, I didn't want to light the fire in her brain to thinking about that, that kind of stuff. So she and she was menopausal at age 49 and she was having terrible bleeding with her menstrual periods and so she had to have a hysterectomy.

34:48 So that summer actually was in early May. We went into the hospital to have the hysterectomy and the nurse gave her the permit sign and sign that says it's OK to go ahead with his operation. And Anne took the pick up the pen and she went and looked at me and says I can't even write my name. What is wrong with me? That was the first real tremor. OK? With Parkinson's and other problems, stress is a huge burden. It brings all these symptoms out and makes the disease worse. So we went to Wimbledon for the our 25th wedding anniversary with another couple and could not was had given up playing tennis because she was having trouble with the quickness, the coordination and was starting to fall a little bit. So our balance was not as good And we we saw doctors, she had no major injuries so we hung in there. But we went to Wimbledon.

36:09 We had a great, great time there. Came back. All the kids are off to college, one in California and two in Kansas. So we wade through that fall and Ann was teaching, was the coach for Saint Joe's Academy girls tennis team and the year before when Sarah was still, or two years before when Sarah was still there, they won the state championship. So Anne was giving back and was loved coaching.

36:50 But by that time she's got all these symptoms. Christmas party time, we're at the medical staff Christmas party downtown and Anne's doctor, the top notch internal medicine specialist was there and he watched how Anne moved and the next morning came into my office at the clinic and said Ralph, I saw Anne at the party last night. He said I watched her, she's got Parkinson's and I said I agree with you. He said you should not tell her. He said I'll tell her. So he said make an appointment.

37:31 So we made an appointment 4:30 on December 31st, New Year's Eve, 1989. I call it the decade of the undiagnosis for 10 years, when actually for 13 years and had all these symptoms. And we finally found out the cause was her Parkinson's disease. And what is Parkinson's disease? It's a degenerative disease in the brain and without going into huge detail, it's like a smoldering fire in the brain. If it's just smoldering a little bit doesn't cause much. If it's flaring up, it causes a lot of trouble. And as that smoldering fire, which is a buildup of abnormal proteins in the brain, and those proteins are so critical in both structure and function of the brain, and most of that is probably caused by exposure to toxins, poisons, weed killers, exposure to unhealthy water, all sorts of things may contribute. Plus some of it may be genetic.

39:00 It may be that I'm sensitive to those toxins and the person that lives next door is not sensitive to them. So at any rate and most of the neurological diseases probably have similar things. They're different and of course we are all individually different and we're different today than we're going to be 10 years from now and 10 years ago. So we're on this journey and in in me, but we're all on journeys and what are we going to to do so and has this diagnosis.

39:41 So their doctor explains to her that what he noticed and that it was Parkinson's and that we don't have any cures for it. Hopefully there will be cures. There's a lot of research being done now. This is December 31st, 4:30 in the afternoon. New Year's Eve, the very last day of the decade, and Ann is 49 years old, so he explains everything and said there's a lot that can be done and we'll get you to see a good neurologist. Their medications that help control the the symptoms of the disease doesn't cure the disease but helps in living with it.

40:30 And you've got a wonderful family and you've got wonderful friends, and we will be here for you. Do you have any questions? And she says no. So we get up, we go out to the car. What's the weather like? Usually late afternoon and on New Year's Eve. Well, if you're going to a positive thing, it's going to be nice. But it's overcast, it's chilly. The sun is already set and we get in the car and she melts down. She cries. I cry. I snuggle up as best I can in the car and she says, and this is a verbatim, she said, My life is over.

41:19 I'll never get to see our kids get married. I'll never get to see grandchildren. I can't play tennis anymore. My life is over. I just so vividly remember that and I snuggle up towards Buster. I could as we're both crying. And I said, Annie, I love you dearly. I always have and I always will. You don't have to worry. I will be with you forever. So the enemy is the damn disease. It's the Parkinson's disease. It's not your fault. It's not my fault. We together are going to fight this damn disease and we're going to make a difference and we're always going to be in our own home.

42:11 Together we can make a difference. Furthermore, I said we got wonderful kids. Yeah, they're away at college right now, but they'll always be around for us. We got wonderful friends. You've got so many friends, They're going to be here for you. And we're going to find the best doctors and the best therapists that can make a difference. We're going to learn, and we will make a difference. Furthermore, Annie, God will be with us and guide us. And mark my words, I know you so well and I know how tough you are. You will fight this damn disease and we will make a difference. And we will get to see our kids get married and we will get to know grandchildren well.

43:16 We drove home, spent a quiet evening. We're supposed to go to a big wonderful New Year's Eve party, called them and said we and the the lady that was a husband and wife, good friends and I said we're just not up to it. And she said, I understand, I didn't spread the word. But so next morning we woke up, We slept together every night of our marriage. We woke up snuggled, shared our our love with each other and and looked at me and she said I hate this stem disease. And I smiled.

44:04 I said that's what I wanted to hear. The battle lines are being drawn. I can handle me. I'm going to do everything I can to help Anne handle it too. And I knew she would, and she did. For the next 31 years. We fought the damn disease in those 31 years. We went to Europe 12 times. We went to Florida for spring breaks with our kids for many years. And then we happened upon a wonderful condominium one year when we were in Florida. We'd never planned to buy anything like that. We took a look and we said that's what we need to do. Brand new on the Ocean.

45:00 We had it for 19 years. We went down four to five times every year. I was still working full time. I had good partners that adjusted the schedule so we could do it. And we walked the beach. We rode bikes. We watched beautiful sunsets from a rooftop lanai. We watched the space shuttle go up one night 150 miles away. Look, we listened to the news, weather, sports that night. There they said the space shuttle is going up. It's a clear night. If you get a chance, go out and look 145 miles. We're standing up there. It's chilly and all of a sudden you see this yellow flare slowly going up and then it starts to elongate as the booster rocket starts to separate.

45:57 And then it's not going up so fast because it's already heading eastward on its pathway. We gives me goosebumps right now sitting here and talking about it. We cried and we hugged, said, Wow, this is so special. And we failed in those 31 years and discovered all sorts of ways to make a difference, to have things to look forward to. The disease. Disease was not her fault and she couldn't help it. The two of us together could and we did. And that's what life is about.

46:48 And that's why, you know, we got going with the the brain center is so much more that can be done when you deal with crappy situations. But life gives us all those kind of things. Yeah, so. And before we get into some of those things that you did, which I think are really important to talk about today before we get into some of that kind of to wrap up that story you had told me. One of the first things she said was my life is over. I'm not going to get to see my my kids get married or my grandkids. That all ended up happening in that 31 years. She ended up seeing how many grandchildren and marriages. 8 grandchildren. Now the the story.

47:35 All three kids got married the same summer. Our marriage survived that, I learned. I mean, did your wallet survive that? Well, I'm still paying it back. But but you know, you you go through those experiences and you say, OK, we have a chance to make this good or we have a chance to make it crappy. You can make every situation worse or you can make it better. That doesn't mean you you can have it go away, but that's what we learned. And so all three of the kids, you know one one of the kids is a physician and was just starting medical school then or or just actually was in medical school and one was a in devil school and the other one that graduated was ACPA and working. And so they all met people and it happened the same summer, all three weddings.

48:45 So we dealt with the the little issues that came up. Now if it was the bride's, sometimes that little issue was a bigger issue. Wasn't a big issue to me, but it was to them. And again, you at that time, you have to put yourself in their shoes, OK, this is important. If it's important to them, that's make it work. And so we did. And the the funny story regarding Anne is in the weddings she She wanted to design the wedding invitations for our oldest daughter.

49:27 And our oldest daughter was living in Kansas. So it seemed appropriate. I get a call from my wife at probably two months before the wedding. Susan hates her wedding anniversary or her her wedding invitations. I said, oh, well, what's the problem? Well, she doesn't like the print on this and the print on that. I said, well, what, what? What the, what are the alternatives? She says what, we're not going to have new ones printed.

50:08 She's going to have to adapt to it. And I said, she's that unhappy. I said we're going to get new wedding invitations. She says those cost lots of money. I said you got some note paper that's expensive. Now that's move onward and then debate on which Who's going to get married when, who's going to be the first one and who's going to be the second one. And there were some some of those little things. And I I took charge at that time. I talked, told all three couples, well, all three of our kids. I didn't involve the spices. Spouses said we're going to celebrate 3 weddings.

50:53 We're not going to be. Hickey said there's reasons why so and so wants to get married here. There's reasons why so and so here and so and so here, we're going to do it, he said. And I'm paying the bill, so I get to call the shots. And so we did. And it and it was a joyous celebration. But meanwhile, this is like 3 months or when the first wedding was scheduled. Anne's got to get a new dress, you know, has to have a new wedding dress. Well, and then she's got to have to have a new dress for the rehearsal dinner. Pretty soon the 2nd wedding is coming up. Well, she's got to have a new dress for that and new dress for this.

51:41 Pretty soon the 3rd wedding is coming up. I said. So you're going to have three new wedding dresses and three new wedding rehearsal dinner dresses. And she said Yes, she said. Oh, OK. She took charge at that time. Yeah. I'm paying the bill, though. And so I did. So she got, so she got to see 3 weddings and eight grandchildren in that 31 years, which I think is phenomenal. I think that's a that's a testament to a lot of the stuff we're going to start talking about now. Like I'd like to hear again in those 31 years, what were those things that you did to, you know quote like you say fight the damn disease.

52:24 What what were those things and how did you do that? And and I think you were particularly set up well for this. Be coming from a place of research already you had already known how to dig really deep into research and and figure out, you know maybe new ways or different ways or learn things about anything. And it just happened to be that this is what was set in front of you and on your plate. So in that 31 years, what did you work through? How did you work through those things and what, what kind of? Not conclusions, but where are you at today? Like what? What what? What did that all entail?

53:08 And taught me whether it was indirect or directly by what she was going through, that you build on strengths and if what you're thinking about doing you've got to understand well and has this disease. I don't have the disease. The disease affects me. But she's living with it. Her brain is not normal. She's not retarded or acutely I'll with it. But it is, like I said earlier, a smoldering fire in her brain. And she would say, what's happening with me, They don't understand.

53:56 And I didn't understand either. I rapidly learned that I had to learn based on what her brain was going through. It's not what I thought was the problem. It's what she believed and lived with and how she did it. So it you know that on the one hand, I thought that's a hard concept to explain. Not really. Always look at the relationship. Even sitting here talking to you, you have to understand what's going through my brain and you are delving into it to get those answers.

54:39 And all too often we we ignore that or we take it for granted that what's going on is totally the way I notice it, what I how I think about it, it doesn't work that way. You have to understand it through Anne's eyes, through her beliefs and what she's experiencing. So the classic example is 1 Morning and this is probably 15 years after she was diagnosed. So and that that means almost 30 years from her first symptom. I I walked in.

55:33 Good morning, Annie. Hi honey. I said I love you. And she said I love you too. She said is mother up? And I said, your mother or my mother. And she said, my mother and I said, and your mother's been dead for 12 years. She is not dead, I think, Wow, I was naive enough. I went upstairs and got her death certificate and came down and handed it to Anne. She's in bed and she looks at it and says oh and handed it back to me all day long.

56:23 It ate me. It just irritated me. Not about her, about me. I thought Ralph, she can't help it. She has a a false belief. She her brain is saying her mother's death. So two days later I walk in. She's his mother up and I said no, she's sleeping peacefully. Couple days later I even find doing that. From that I said she's sleeping peacefully in heaven. Never again did she ask anything like that. OK, now that united us in a certain way and I learned. And I as time went on, then I learned to keep learning. Learn, learn, learn.

57:27 You have ways to change. A bad moment, a bad day, a problem that's going to be there and adapt to it in a way that it maximizes her ability to deal with that. Don't pour kerosene on the fire. Instead, build on the strengths. Love is critical. We hugged. We always had a wonderful relationship. She was a wonderful wife, a wonderful lover. As we get. As we aged, we changed.

58:10 But we found ways to adapt. Fight the fight the enemy, the enemies, the disease or the symptoms of that disease. And it worked. And it was it was time while on it became very satisfying. So we rarely would have a bad day because when we had bad moments we found ways to deal with it. And people say, well, you are amazing, Rolf. I said Anne was amazing because she portrayed to me the things that she was dealing with and I learned how to deal with those portrayals that she gave me and build strengths. And sometimes it's hugs, sometimes it's laughter, It's it's almost never tough love because you don't want to hurt her.

59:21 She's putting up with enough crap with what's in her brain and then you get to eventually, which we'll do, I assume today get to OK, what can you do to really make a difference? And that, and that's an ongoing battle all the time for everybody and for all of us that are have the potential of having diseases, conditions. And so we bought with love. We communicated. We hugged a lot. I have two regrets. We hugged a lot, but we still didn't hug enough because I miss her physical presence.

1:00:10 But then you get into the spirituality aspects of all this, and that is high on the list. The people that have good spiritual backgrounds and we're all different in our spiritual ideas, but the people that have a spiritual aspect to how they live can make a huge difference. So that we learned not only to love each other but to bring got into our relationship and we did.

1:00:51 And especially as the disease took its tolls and made the challenges greater, we found ways to deal with. And that brings as I said, I have two regrets. One was we didn't hug enough, #2 is that we didn't identify the things that were going to be a bigger problem in later stages of her Parkinson's and later stages of her life. And that's something you can help with a lot in your consultancy right now. I'm assuming that's probably a central piece of it. Isn't there a before we get too far away from it? Isn't there a bit of irony in the the awareness of how to deliver news and and how to empathize and put yourself in the other person's shoes with her initial diagnosis, that doctor?

1:01:40 Had the firm understanding of that, he said. Ralph, you don't tell her, I have to tell her. He knew that. It's kind of a a weird, ironic piece of the entire story. I I love that piece of the story because it taught me. I knew that you have to be careful in how you give news and and interpersonal relationships. And talking about that doctor, he was sharp as could be. And in the book that we've written on Anne and my story, Susan, our oldest daughter, tells the story.

1:02:27 In that book. She remembers she would have been, at the time, probably 14 years of age, that Anne had a Spinal Tap. Who did the Spinal Tap? Her doctor. That would have been about 1980. I remember him doing that Spinal Tap. He explained to Ann. And to me, there's something neurological going on. I want to do a Spinal Tap.

1:03:09 He did not find anything. The spinal fluid was normal but she got a post spinal headache which can happen you get if they you poke a little tiny needle in into your back in into the fluid filled sock around your spinal cord and sometimes that little hole that the needle made leaks And so you lose some of the spinal fluid and that can cause significant headache and it's just a pain in the the neck. And nowadays we have ways to sort of counteract the effects of that if it occurs.

1:03:55 But it still is a always a potential. And it was Mother's Day weekend and we had house guests and Ann was laying on the, excuse me, let's see, Ann was laying on the floor because that helped relief. And we talked about this other couple and their three kids and our three kids. Fido, would you like another spoonful of this? And we all laughed.

1:04:37 It really wasn't funny but it was sort of cute but you encounter things But what was impressive about is her doctor wanted to do that test. Nobody else along the way said I want to do that because I'm trying to figure out what's going on and and I agreed with them. We need to know. Well, it didn't show anything, but nowadays they talk about doing spinal taps. In fact we're doing, they do them sometimes looking for certain chemicals that say, yes, this is an abnormal protein in there and and we're going to have answers to that and and hopefully a lot of those will be be done just by checking your blood and not spinal fluid. So you don't have nearly the side effects of that. So there's exciting things going on. But so that was just a little sidelight of of the things that some of the things that we dealt with. And I mean this is what, six years before she was diagnosed with Parkinson's.

1:05:48 But that doctor was sharp and the fact that he took charge of the painful interactions that had to be done. And I'm glad that he did. And he taught me taught me well. Yeah, Yeah. So then now let's jump into some of those things. Like I think one of the poignant things that sticks out in my mind when you kind of brought me through this quickly is you're going to tell it much better than I do. But you talk about how a lot of folks with Parkinson's will be walking with a with a Walker, and you did the opposite, quite frankly, right?

1:06:29 Yes. Took the Walker away. Eventually, we learned the initial reaction is to use the Walker it it involves identifying what the problems are and trying to prevent the bad things that can occur in our journey with Parkinson's disease, there's no doubt we're not going to have a cure. We know that it's that smouldering fire and it's going to flare up from time to time and the long term future is none of us live for 120 years, OK?

1:07:13 Some of us are going to run out of gas sooner. The Parkinson's in an obviously it at least started when she was 36. Most of the people with Parkinson's and they're all everyone is different but most of the people don't survive. I wouldn't say don't survive because there are exceptions, but some people it's an aggressive disease and and I learned we were dealing with an aggressive disease and I think we made a difference by what we did. And part of that is identifying what our potential problems and attack them, attack them early.

1:08:11 Any treatment for any problems, the ideal thing is to prevent it so you'd never have to deal with it. If you can't prevent it, it's to delay, it's coming on. If you can't delay, it's coming on. You want to minimize it when it starts and if you can, reverse it. If you can't reverse it, you want to attack it anyway to deal with it, and you adapt to it and you carry on. It's not O Bingo.

1:08:52 We got an easy QR here. We're not going to have that. Life is a disease. Eventually it's going to end. It's not a disease, but it's a challenge. All of these things are challenges, and we can make a difference. And so that's what I learned in dealing with our our journey with Annie. And so I found out the things, oh, I know if we should do this. OK, then let's do it. Let's motivate ourselves. Let's educate ourselves to deal with the crap that we have to deal with and approach it in that way.

1:09:38 So we would. You talked about walking one of the big problems with Parkinson's, whose poor balance. In one year she had three major falls. She was 70 years old that year. The 1st fall she got out of bed to go to the bathroom. I said I'll I'll help you Andy. And she said no, I'm fine. And she was had pretty good balance. Was her balance great? No. People with Parkinson's will gradually have balance problems. So she's walking through the door from the bedroom into the bathroom, and I'm watching her and she slips and falls on a chair and her right side of her chest falls on the hard arm and she falls to the floor and she's really hurting. She broke three ribs.

1:10:34 We went to the hospital. I checked out because the right side, there's a liver underneath the rib cage, There's a lung underneath the rib cage. You want to make sure she didn't puncture her lung. And she had a scan and didn't show any internal damage, but showed 3 broken ribs. Three months later, she says. Let's go out and look at the flowers and beautiful June morning where Anne and I are walking along. I loosely have my hands on her left arm. With that, she trips on a crack on the driveway. The first thing that hit was her head on the concrete crack. She's laying 2/3 on her stomach, totally unconscious, breathing, good pulse.

1:11:23 The ABC's. She's her Airways OK. She's breathing and her circulation is good because she has a good pulse but she's got a head injury. I look for a neighbor to call 91 because my cell phone is in the house and nobody around. There's always somebody around, but not then. And I looked up and I said God, we need you now. So I stayed with her for a couple of minutes, no change. So I run in, get my cell phone, call 911 and the ambulance or the Rescue Squad is only six blocks away from our house. Explain to the person on the phone what happened and she said that that we'll have a Rescue Squad there shortly, don't move her.

1:12:15 And I said don't worry, I'm not going to move her at all. Within about 10 minutes I can hear the siren and she's starting to moan. I said, Annie, can you hear me? Yeah. Don't move, don't move. Are you having any pain? No. Are you? I said don't move. I feel her neck. She doesn't complain. And I say gently move your fingers. She moves her fingers a little bit. That's good. Move your feet a little bit and she moves her feet. I said, we're going to take you to the hospital. Just wait, don't move the Rescue Squad sphere. And they'll put a collar on your neck and and carefully put a backboard on you and and start moving you. So she was in the hospital overnight. She had a bleed in her brain called the subdural hematoma. She had a skull fracture.

1:13:24 Next morning, they repeated the scan. There was no further bleeding. And I was there when the neurosurgeon and the trauma surgeon came in and they said you can take her home, she's OK. She did well thereafter with that brain injury and long term had no problems in her with her brain because of that injury. But three months later, this wonderful, somewhat feisty lady I have arranged for people to be with her if I wasn't there on a Thursday.

1:14:05 On Tuesday I was at the hospital and I told her when I left for the hospital I'll be home at noon if she was safe to go to the bathroom. I said don't do anything else and no laundry. I'll be home. So I get a call at the hospital from our daughter and went to the laundry room to do laundry and fell and broke her hip. And fortunately she had the push button object so she could call for help. And so that took six months to get over all of that. She had to have surgery for it.

1:14:51 So at that time when she had that fall, I said you're not going to fall again, her balance is bad. And that was at what age? That was when she was 70. OK, so for the next, well, right then we tried intensive physical therapy and they said what? Your balance is not good. You've got to use a Walker. Well, she had a classic Parkinson's walk. When she used her Walker lean forward and shuffle, she was not stable. But they said, and the good therapist said, stand up tall and she'd stand up tall and the 2nd she'd start to walk.

1:15:37 Leaning on the Walker, she'd shuffle. I said, Annie, you're not going to do that. We're going to get rid of your Walker. You and I are going to walk together. Now people would say, well, you took away some of her independence. A broken hip takes care of her independence. A head injury takes care of her, interferes with her independence. Walking with Parkinson's and a Walker doesn't make her independent and safe. I can make her safe. Sally Ann, the caregiver wonderful gal, can make her safe. Now Sally Ann would use a Walker and a gate belt and be right there because this was for an hour, 2 hours when they had to do something with me.

1:16:32 I have no problem with being her 24 hour partner. I love it. And so we would walk and I taught her and she accepted it. She learned and God guided us. And the scientific articles that I encountered verified that you can do these things. Now, does it work for everybody? Who knows. It worked for us for 10 years. We had no falls. We kept her going. Yeah. The disease was smoldering in her brain and caused other issues.

1:17:14 Swallowing, not able to eat as well as she could and some cognitive impairment. Her judgement wasn't good. OK, don't worry about her judgement. Make joy, make it good, make her laugh, put music on, put new Neil Diamond on and and make those moments when we're trying to exercise and move even better. And we did. And friends would come and they take her out for lunch and when she wasn't safe, I'd go along. I didn't interfere with the conversation. I just sort of sit in the back and it worked.

1:17:58 And family. You know, when, when she took her last breath at age 80 and 1/2, she had seen and we had seen our three children get married four times. We got to see 8 grandchildren. The youngest was 11 and the three oldest were in college. Yeah. That that part's amazing. Yeah. And we achieved all sorts of wonderful things. And say, well, would I have liked that she was still around? Yeah, she I would. Spiritually she is.

1:18:41 She hasn't left me. And a friend said to me one time, you'll get over that. I don't have anything I have to get over because Annie's presence is real. Her grandchildren know who Annie was, and we'll continue to remember that she's part of them. Furthermore, those grandkids, every one of those grandkids is 1/4 Annie's jeans and 1/4 my jeans. And I. When I with those kids, we get talking about things like this, they will start rolling their eyes. And I said, you can roll your eyes all you want, but you won't get rid of Annie and you won't get rid of me. We are around.

1:19:33 You're genetically with us. And you remember things we did. The good things, the funny things, and perhaps some of the things that weren't so good, but we made sure that they were good. Yeah, so. Yeah. So what were some of the? What were some of the other maybe? Things that you discovered in that that you know, time period of making this conscious decision to to fight the disease. Like I know you've mentioned that a lot of it starts in the gut. What were some of those things that that we can talk about that maybe are, you know, fledgling or, you know, on the brink of being discovered or maybe things that aren't even that and maybe it's just, you know, anecdotal or subjective?

1:20:25 Science advances, and it's pretty impressive when we think we discover something. If you look very far, you'll find out it's been talked about. It's been discovered already, but we haven't learned it yet. And that happens with all of us, including good doctors and family members, but especially the the deep science I mentioned in learning how to walk safely without the Walker. OK, I had to train her brain how to do that. I found a scientific article that said just that, that it it's not only telling them what to do, but motivating them to do it correctly and to become, if they can't make it automatic, to make it under their awareness control. If you know what you have to do, if you have a bad habit and a good analogy, if you smoke you know it's not good for you. OK, don't have the first cigarette. Now, if you think about it, we do all sorts of things. Automatic.

1:21:54 You're out with the group and you had a couple of beers. They say have another beer. Oh yeah, we're talking. We're having fun. I'll have another beer. Take control of those, those kind of things, and don't allow them to be automatic. And for me, it's the potato chip. Give me one potato chip and I'll eat the entire bag. That first potato chip is makes makes me have another one. It just automatically go on with it. It's an addiction, OK?

1:22:39 Get rid of the addictions. Take control of when there's a problem. When things are good, allow that to continue and allow that to be a habit. So make good habits and not bad habits, general physical exercise. Keep moving, moving, moving. And that's what Anne and I did when she couldn't walk. Well, yeah, we walked a little bit together, but we got two chairs sitting just like the two of us are sitting across from each other. Set up straight and move your arms up. OK, lean forward.

1:23:25 First day, I had her try to do that. I said lean forward, Annie. And she went like this. I said no further. I said your your body hasn't. Your brain has forgotten how to lean forward. Now, I didn't say that to her, but I said it to me. I said let me have your hands. And so she put her hands out in front and I said, OK, we're going to lean forward. And I lean forward. And I pulled her. Pretty soon I took my hands away and she's leaning forward.

1:24:08 We awakened her ability to lean forward. Her brain had forgotten how to do that simple little concept, but very, very real. I took care of a man years ago with a bad hip fracture and he was cantankerous as could be. He said, Doc, he says I don't need a nursing home. I'm going, you're going to get me fixed and I'm going to be home. And his wife is in the corner shaking her head because she knew how what a, what a burden he was going to be. So we fixed his hip and he realized reluctantly that he had to go to a nursing home but he was getting better. So eventually went home, had a physical therapist coming to the home.

1:24:55 His wife was there and he was getting by. He comes in the house and in the office for follow up and he said doc, there's something wrong with my hip and I had an X-ray, X-rays look great. His hip was right the way it should be. And so he's sitting in the chair and I said it was his right hip. I said lift your left leg. And he says yeah, he says that's not the broken one. I said I know that. I said lift it up and he lifts it up. I said lift your right leg up and he says it won't lift. He said, OK, let's do the left leg, leg again, lift the left leg.

1:25:40 He says it's not the broken one. And I said that's OK. So he lifted it. So I said, now lift your right. Like I put my hands underneath his knee and he says yeah, it doesn't work. I said OK, so I lift his left leg and he lifts it with me, put my hands underneath and I lift the right leg. And he says, yeah, that won't lift. So I lift the right, the left, the right, the left. All of a sudden I can feel his muscles start to take control. And all of a sudden he's lifting the right one, just like he's lifting the left one. All of a sudden he opens his eyes or opens his brain and said, Oh my God, you're a miracle worker.

1:26:28 He said, what was wrong with it? I said your brain forgot to how to do it. You just retrained your brain. Wow, he said he did great thereafter. OK, a lot of the stuff is not rocket science. Teaching Annie how to walk safely and when I said lean forward pretty soon she can do it. OK. And does that make her feel good? You're darn right it is. Praise, never criticize, suggest, guide. But, and work together and all sorts of little tricks of the trade and continue to hug. We had a bad day.

1:27:15 One time, no matter what I tried to do. Music, laughter, exercise. It wasn't working. We went to bed, snuggled up to each other. I love you, Annie. I love you too, honey, I said. Been a crappy day, hasn't it? And she said it sure has. I said, mark my words, we're going to make tomorrow better and we're going to make all our days better. And I'd never prayed out loud when we went to bed. We're religious, we go to church. And I said, we're going to make a difference.

1:28:04 I snuggled up to her again, and I said our Father who art. And with that she joined me with the Lord's Prayer. We said it out loud together. I had not told her we're going to do the Lord's Prayer. I just started and she joined me at the end of that. At the end of the Lord's Prayer, I said, God, you have so eminently blessed Annie and me. You've given us life on this wonderful earth. You've given us wonderful parents, family and friends. Most of all, you've given us each other.

1:28:46 You brought us together at that research lab at UW Madison, so that we met, we fell in love, and 51 weeks later we married. You have been with us on our journeys today. We had a bad day. Annie and I vow that we're going to make all our days better, and with your continued love, we will. We never had a bad day thereafter. Did we go downhill because of the smoldering fire in her brain? Yeah. We did everything we could to counteract that, to delay it, to adapt to it.

1:29:32 And we did that. And in the end, God saw to it that Annie slept away peacefully, without pain, without suffering at home. For a while I thought, yeah, it was tough to lose her, but I rapidly realized I didn't lose her. Her spiritual soul lives on, and what we've learned from her lives on. Her legacy lives on, and that legacy is what she gave us and continues to give us the opportunity to build.

1:30:19 And so it's a joy to be able to share what we learned. We're all different. We understand that we all have challenges, but challenges are opportunities and opportunities can be built with love, with understanding, with knowing ourselves and knowing those that are important to us and knowing people that we don't even know and making the world better.

1:31:00 So let's make our own individual worlds good, but let's try to, to help those elsewhere understand as well. And maybe we can even make a difference with war and hatred, which is the the worst thing that can be war and hatred. So that's that's build love and understanding. Yeah. Absolutely. And that's the, that's a lot of the goal with the with the book in in the brain center, right. I mean that's what you're trying to do is, I mean you going through what you had to experience and having the unique background you did before.

1:31:43 That puts you in a pretty unique place that I think, you know, I'm, I'm conjecturing here, but I'm. I'm assuming that that's what you're trying to do. Right. Is share that. Sure. You know, people would say, well, you're lucky you're a doctor. You've got all this information. I'm a human being. I have an opportunity. What made Annie and my journey so special? Yeah, I I'm glad I went to medical school. I'm glad I had an education. But we learned under fire. We learned when the challenges were there. And I look back and I I think about my parents, they they dealt with stuff and they learned and they lived. So this is not unique.

1:32:29 With Annie and me. There are so many people that give and donate to making others better, and it's not unique. It's open our eyes and say we can all do more. So I I think it's just a joyful opportunity. And the thing I shudder about is, well, Ralph Lula, you did this. OK, A lot of people do this. It's just we have an opportunity to spread the word that more can be done. And especially in our situation with Parkinson's. But our situation was a marriage. That's this.

1:33:18 Make this marriage be as good as it can be and help our kids, but help the friends we know and help those people that we cross pathways with. Yeah, so. Yeah. And I mean, you talk about the benefits of that spirituality and I think a lot of that comes back to even mindset, right? Yeah, way. At the beginning you were talking about how stress is an extreme, you know, trigger or detractor in the scenario and. What resonates in hearing you talk and discussing this whole scenario is, is making sure that that that the, the positivity and the, you know, the emotions and and everything around the scenario stays in that way, as opposed to snowballing affected the opposite way, which probably adds fuel to the rumbling fire you're talking about, right? One thing, which is it's so easy to forget the whole spectrum of things.

1:34:31 You know, we talked about our six pillars of to help our brain health. Physical exercise. OK, It's good for our heart, it's good for our lungs, it's good for our muscles. But it has to be individualized for our individual needs, because we're all different. OK. But more than anything else, physical exercise also stimulates our brain, and our brain is so critical in everything we do. OK, what else stimulates our brain? Social relationships, A marriage, friends.

1:35:13 All sorts of wonderful things that we have the opportunity to do. So we want to we want to socialize. We we want to build those relationships. OK, So that stimulates our brain keep. Talking. So in addition to stimulating our brain with with social activities, things that challenge our brain, music, playing the piano, all sorts of activities like that.

1:35:57 Reading, learning. I learned day in and day out things and I still read and and I want to, but meeting with people and listening to them and then sharing our individual stories and what we learn. Sleep is very important. Well, if you eat correct, if you eat well and we'll talk about that quickly and you exercise, that contributes to sleeping better. But we're all individually different. Some people have sleep apnea and things like that. So you've got to deal with the individual problems you have with sleep nutrition.

1:36:45 Our body requires lots of good fuel. Unfortunately, we take bad fuel, and a lot too. We've epidemics of liver disease, of obesity, of heart problems, of diabetes. All these things interconnect with each other and their challenges. So you want to attack all of those things. Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving, Sleep well, eat well. For me, avoid that potato chip so that I don't eat the entire bag. Also, healthy vegetables and healthy proteins and healthy fats.

1:37:37 We won't get into that in detail, but pay attention to this and know yourselves because we are all individually different. So we have our individual needs. Our intestinal tracts are critically important in our health. We tended to ignore our intestinal tracts for years. Our intestinal tracts are filled with bacteria. They've always have been and they always will be. But the bad kind of bacteria in there are hard to into our our damaging to our nervous system and to our brain. So we have to be careful and how we handle that. And this is really sort of a new awareness of a lot of science and there's no way we can get into that today. And I'm not the the true expert on that stuff. We have to avoid toxins and poisons, the weed killers, and that things that kill weeds are not good for our brains. In the blue-green algae on the Fox River grows A neurotoxin that's damaging to our brain.

1:38:57 Don't let your puppy go out and swim in it. They drink a little of that. They may die. Don't smell that stuff. If I'm walking on the Fox River Trail in August, you look out and that scum is out there on the lakes and the rivers. That's a toxin. The red tide in Florida is a toxin that kills the algae that grows, grows it, and kills the fish that eat it, and kills the dolphins that eat the fish. OK, that's bad stuff.

1:39:39 Kills their brains. Who knows what it's doing for us. So all those kind of things. So be careful in what you do. I'm trying to think I go to the six pillars and I say, OK, Ralph, you've gone through five of them. I think I covered basically 6 of it. Oh, stress. Stress is the other one. Stress is really damaging. But so I'll try to minimize the stress. And Anna and I minimize the stress. We hugged, we laughed. We found ways to get around. We put music on and we stomped around to Neil Diamond.

1:40:22 Especially if it was a stressful time and we hugged. You know, nothing wrong with crying. Make crying positive. Me. Be grateful. And that's a big factor. Be grateful the glass is half full. It's not empty. OK? Be thankful that it's half full. That's been one of the amazing things since talking to you the first time that that I think is really really sticks out about everything you say and do is is the the fine you were able to really find a gift in something that. Most would see as no gift at all the quite the opposite actually and and I'm I'm quite sure and I it seems like you are too that that played a part in in that 31 year endeavor correction in that 56 1/2 year endeavor, right.

1:41:24 But I I realized that from the diagnosis for 31 years, yes, but we built a we were building a foundation, even though we didn't know it. We and and the foundation, because of Parkinson's disease, started when she lost her sense of smell. We were, we were having a brain scan at with the neurologist that saw Ann and said, I can't find anything, it has to be neurologic, but we'll get a scan on your brain. So we're in the X-ray department at Saint Vincent Hospital and a friend, and actually the friend, I won't name him, he and his wife were having the New Year's Eve party that Ann and I were scheduled to go to.

1:42:21 And he was a character. And so he said, what are you doing here? Ralph? And I saw Anne's having a, a brain scan. Oh, really? He said she's an amazing lady. He said he looked over and he said, oh, there's Anne over there. Hey, Anne, don't worry, just a second. Urban. He said she's not ready for you yet. Urban was a mutual friend who was a funeral director. Oh. No. And he said, Bourbon, she's not ready for you yet and I thought that I hope she didn't didn't hear that or think about it.

1:43:06 But you know, you you have things and if you do it right, but we've all said something, something that we regret and that's that's part of life. So you you have to sort of control yourself. You got a bad habit. You don't keep feeding that bad habit. Make things positive. Find joy and find the tools with which to to handle all those things. So the six pillars you're talking about are the, are the six pillars, is that the central figure of the book?

1:43:46 No, no, that's the. That's the story. The six pillars are what we rely on for overall brain health for everybody. We all should basically do the six pillars. Now the the book is really two things, although it's it's more complex than that. It's talking about our journey and what the journey taught us. It's talking about the love affair we had and quite frankly, what were, what were we challenged with when we fell in love? We're young kids, and we were attracted to each other. Do you worry when you have a tough exam coming up and that you got to study and you got to do these things and you're learning things that are somewhat overwhelming? The first time you see surgery, do you faint? And I mean all these things go on and on. You adapt to them.

1:45:02 And so the book talks about our journey and our love affair, but also what we learned that was very, very important. And it took a book, it took the whole book to get that across. And I have to say that we, I think we were really able to do that. The back cover of the book summarizes it nicely. If you if you want me to read that it. It doesn't take long and it tells the store you tell me if you want me to.

1:45:50 I can put that in the show notes. I'll link I'll link your I'll link your website in the in the book in the show notes. But yeah, I mean so much value in in sharing it's. When you think about the like the exponential way to to you know touch lies and make an impact, right. That's why a lot of us are ultimately here. I I'm just, you know I think I'm sure a lot of people are thankful that you you've taken the steps to do that and and share the story and you know the everything around it with the with the intention of you know helping someone else. Sure.

1:46:36 In in, in the brain center, we do coaching, OK, We're not going to be the, the quote clients because we don't have people, their patients, they're called clients. Well, only only because we're not a healthcare system we don't have. We're not doctors practicing in medicine. We're not going to be your doctor. We're going to be coaches. We've been on a journey and we've learned things. We don't have all the answers, but we're willing to spend time with you and understand what you're understand and help educate you in what's your challenge Challenged with and the good example with Parkinson's disease.

1:47:37 I'll do coaching and I'll see somebody that has been newly diagnosed and they've been worried because it's a real disease. They feel differently and felt differently, she said. What's going on with me? There's something going on and nobody's been able to give me an answer. Some of these people have been diagnosed. Some of these people are worried and somebody suggested that, oh, it could be this or they may have Parkins, their their father may have Parkinson's disease and all of a sudden they've got a little bit of a tremor and and they're they're struggling. OK, yes, you go see your doctors, you see your neurologist.

1:48:23 So somebody comes in and they say I have to wait 2-2 months to see the neurologist and you don't know what to do. I'm just worried if understandable, I take their history and said if I don't know if you've got Parkinson's or not, but your brain is not working the way it should be at whatever is going on. And so we'll listen to him. And frequently in an hour and a half visit, I'll say, yeah, I I imagine, I think you probably do a Parkinson's.

1:49:10 I'm not going to be your doctor, but I said I'll and I'll tell tell him our journey with Anne and what we learned. And you can't even do that in an hour and a half. It takes longer than that. And then we talk about the things that we had to deal with that our doctors didn't understand and we learned and we found, you know, a terrible high blood pressure. One day we couldn't wake her up and her blood pressure was 220 / 120. This is a 90 pound lady at this time.

1:49:54 She's unresponsive. Laying in bed color is good, breathing well, good pulse. So I call her doctor, who said he's going to be right out. I didn't call 911 because she's breathing. She doesn't need a closed chest massage or anything else. And so the doctor. Our doctor comes. Yes, her blood pressure's 220 / 110. We got to get her blood, wake her up and give her one of your blood pressure pills because I have high blood pressure. And so we sort of sit her up in bed and all of a sudden she starts to wake up, says hi to the doctor, says hi to me and she checks out.

1:50:47 Normal neurologically, but her blood pressure is still up but she's awake. Now recover one of my blood pressure pills. OK, what caused our high blood pressure? It's called supine. Supine, meaning lying down, hypertension. 50% of people with Parkinson's have major blood pressure problems, either too high or too low or both, due to the disease affecting the nerves that control our blood pressure. OK, this is well established but not appreciated by most people, including virtually everybody I see for coaching. They they're not aware of that.

1:51:40 OK, keep an eye on your blood pressure, especially when you're lying down. There's no doubt blood pressure gets too low when you stand up too fast. When you've had a big Turkey dinner on Thanksgiving and you you fall asleep watching the football game afterwards, Why, All the blood is going to your gut, digesting that food, and it's not going to your brain and keeping you alert. All those things are real. And so that that was one of the things that we really learned with Annie. And we learned, keep her well hydrated before she gets out of bed in the morning. Ordinarily, if we had nothing to drink all night long, we're dehydrated.

1:52:27 OK, We go into the bathroom. If we don't have any diseases, we drink some water, we brush our teeth and we adapt and we have breakfast. OK, That process is much slower in some way with Ann's Parkinson's disease. And she passed out with on me numerous times in the morning when I got her up, what they do lie her down on the floor and get her feet up in the air. All of a sudden she'd open her eyes and said what are you doing on the floor? And I said you zoned out on me. And she said I did not. Well, she she was on, you know, she passed out, and we learned to get to avoid that from happening before.

1:53:11 I got her out of bed in the morning, gave her a glass of water, and if she was having trouble swallowing, we made smoothies. And so I'd give her her morning smoothie while she's in bed. Now, was that easy? Not necessarily, because sometimes she she had trouble swallowing, and she had a swallowing study in which the, the speech therapist said she should never use a straw. Well, I've got to get nutrition in her. If she can't, if she can't swallow anything and can't use the straw, she's going to have to have a feeding tube, which she did not want. Has its own side effects. And we found a way. 2 smoothies every day we give her, she'd get 1500 calories in in those two smoothies and that kept her weight from going down further from 90 pounds.

1:54:08 And we also then we'd give her McDonald's strawberry shake after the second smoothie as a reward. We all need a little reward at the end. That's right. So we've we found ways to do things and and keep her nutrition going well and and and healthy nutrition. When I made her smoothies, it's loaded with good protein and good fat and safe carbohydrates. So all that stuff, you're you're hearing a lot of the book and that's why I had to put it in a book, because you, you forget certain topics. And so we we added as much as we could, yeah. Well, I appreciate you coming and sharing your story, Ralph. I I think it's really valuable that you're sharing it and I'm glad you did it here.

1:55:12 Thanks for joining us. Thank you.