Parkinson's Awareness Month

The picture above is the symbol for Parkinson's Awareness (PD).  It is only fitting that in Parkinson's Awareness Month Jim is having his 2nd Deep Brain Stimulation surgery.  His tremor started out on the right side.   He had DBS done in 2006.  It, along with medication controls the symptoms, allowing him to write, drive, feed himself and do the other neccessities of life.  Another tremor has now started on the left side.  since he is right handed he was able to put this surgery off, however the cramping that goes along with the tremor has become too distracting.

I am consatantly bombarded with people wanting me to donated to the Heart association, Breast Cancer research MS and many others, how long will it take for people to have an awareness of Parkinson's?  This disease  it like being slowly tortured over a period of as long as 30 years.  Imganie if you were to do isometric exercises 24/7 how you would feel--that is what many PD patients have to contend with.

PD is when the dopamine producing cells of the brain start to die.  By the time a person is diagnosed with PD they have already lost up to one third of these precious cells.  PD, although not believed to be hereditary, does tend to run in some families.  The weakness is in the body and it waits until it has a trigger to start the disease.

In Jim's case there are no family members who had the disease.  While putting himself though college he worked one summer at the Diamond Shamrock plant in Pasadena, Texas.  He was put down into a storage tank with oxgen and protective garments to clean it.  He was monitored on a regular basis for chemical poisoning.  When he tested positive for Mercury poisoning they put him on another job.  I wonder why he wasn't taken off that job before he tested positive?  Or why didn't they provide him with medical support for the future if he did develop any debilitaing effects from the poisoning?

Every PD patient, although suffering from the loss of the same type of cells, has a unique reaction to the loss.  Some have what is called freezing, where they take a step and cannot stop the forward motion, some have tremors, and some have both.  DBS does not help those whose symtoms are slowness of movement and freezing.  DBS also does not cure or stop the progression of the disease.  It continues to progress and debilitate.  When Jim was diagnosed 16 years ago, I asked the doctor, "How soon will there be a cure?"  He told me it was about 5 years away.  When Jim had his DBS in 2006, the answer was the same.  And now 16 years later there still in no cure.  No one cares until it affects them or their family.

Spring...perhaps?

Jim found this little guy on the sidewalk this AM. I ever so carefully let him climb onto my finger and put him in the lavender. It was in the high 30s, I think he was cold because he would only move his wings if I cupped my hands and blew warm air on him.



The Teacherage

When public schools started in the mid 1800s only single women were allowed to teach. If they married they gave up their teaching career to stay home with their family. At first a teacher only had to finish HS and take the teaching exam later there were three exams to pass to become a teacher. By the 1920s however teachers were required to have a teaching degree.  They were usually educated at a "State Normal School"  which later became teaching colleges like Sam Houston State and Texas State University.

It was considered improper for a single woman to live outside her parent's or a family member's house, so the commuity provided a place for for the teacher to live with one of the community's families. They were paid very little so having housing  provided was almost a neccessity. In 1940 in Pratt Kansas a teacher made $500 for the year and if the school's money ran short they might not get paid in May. It was paid over the nine months of the school year and they teacher had to find a summer job to hold them over until school started again.

As schools changed from the one room school house and started using many teachers the community would build dorm like housing for all of the teachers to live together. This practice continued into the mid-20th century. Before my mother married she lived in teacherages in Kansas and Oklahoma. Once in Kansas when she taught in a very small school the superintendent had an apartment in his attic for the teacher. That was where she lived--she "took her meals" with the family.

This is a diagram (from my mother's description) of the teacherage

she lived in during WWII in Pratt, Kansas.

In LaMarque, where I attended school , there was a teacherage until about 1960.  In the early 1900s the entire school grades 1 to 12 was housed in one building.  Across the street was the teacherage.   The teacherage later became the LaMarque Independent School District's Administration Building.  The building that had once housed all the grades later became Lamar Elmentary.

In West Texas today some of the very snall rural districts still provide housing for their teachers.  It may no longer be called a teacherage but the concept is the same.





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