My brain's writting checks that my body can't cash!

“His brain is writing checks his body can’t cash.”  Dude Benson used to say, about his dad (and my friend), Ken Benson.* I suppose there is some truth to that statement; after all, we all have limitations imposed by accident or disease or native ability, but I refuse to let that keep me from cashing in on the maximum effort my body can deliver.  Everyone with hope has images of a better future flash within their brain and without hope we live dismal lives, consigning ourselves to become prisoners of our circumstances and I never learned how to do that.

Don (right) lifeguarding at LPHS 1959

 I learned to swim before I could walk and I intend, with a fixed determination, to swim until I die.

In 1960 I was assigned to the Navy’s Electronics Technician “A’ School on Treasure Island, San Francisco, California.  The island must have been beautiful when it was the center piece for the 1939 World’s Fair.   When I attended Basic Electronics School, way back in 1960, T.I. was rivaled for austerity and lack of creature comfort, only by the other rock in the Bay: Alcatraz.  We lived in pre WWII barracks; 80 to the unit, and we ate in a substandard chow hall that tried to feed 500 hungry sailors during a staggered 2 hour block.  The same movie was shown Sunday to Saturday.  The trolleys ran infrequently. There was only one way into or onto the island.  We were unbelievably  isolated. There were no snack bars, restaurants or any other form of entertainment.  There was an old “gym” on the base, but the “gem” of the island was the 50 meter 8 lane swimming pool.  It was constructed during WWII and was used to train pilots how to ditch at sea.  It didn’t have much room for spectator bleachers and the 8 racing lanes were a functional mystery given the initial intent for its use.  A small group of sailors got together to form a team, but the effort would have been made in vain had  Finn Ruska not needed a place for training his Olympian daughter, Sylvia.

 I participated in the 12^th Naval District Swimming Championships in 1960 which were held in the 50 meter pool on Treasure Island. My older brother, Walter, had come to cheer me on and there was hardly enough room in his MG for a driver, a passenger and my trophies. Two things can be attributed to my success: for the first time in my life I was eating three square meals a day, and Sylvia Ruska paced me and pressed me to achieve more with each stroke during work outs. 

 Ironically by 1987, the Navy had moved Headquarters 12^th Naval District to Seattle, Washington and just before retiring, I swam in the 12^th Naval District’s Swimming Championships held at the Submarine Base Bangor, Washington and I swam every race I had won in 1960.  It wasn’t until five years later that I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.   I still didn’t know how and when to quit.

In 1995 we moved to Cedar City, Utah, near the campus of Southern Utah University (SUU). I had been teaching high school electronics and math in Washington but the progression of my Parkinson’s made it impossible for me to work in a classroom setting, so I thought that I would work on getting my Master’s Degree. I did not realize at the time, that new Parkinson’s meds had affected me cognitively and I was unable to accomplish tasks that required sequential thinking; I also began experiencing double vision and had to relinquish driving a car to my wife, Carol.  This was a pretty low point for me and I found my days spent at the SUU swimming pool and wood shop instead of in the classroom.  The first time I swam in the Utah Summer Games, in 1996, I won eight gold medals.  Over the next 5 years I won about 15 more and at one time I held 13 records in my age group, at the Utah Summer Games.

By 2002 my lower back began giving me trouble from an old injury and my Parkinson’s made it safer for me to use a power chair at least part of the time at home and around town.

In 2004 my lower back was causing me constant pain and I was seriously disabled by Degenerative Disc Disease. After surgery on my lumbar spine I gained considerable relief and having been out of a pool for several months, even the therapy pool was encouraging me to imagine my return to swimming competitively.

In March of 2006 I began having some pain in my chest and left arm but hadn’t mentioned it to anyone until, after enjoying lunch with Carol at one of our favorite cafés in Cedar City and stopping to browse for treasures at one of the town’s thrift stores, I climbed into the passenger seat of our SUV and Carol asked if there was anywhere else I wanted to go before we headed home.  I quickly replied, “Take me to the hospital.” Carol looked over at me and saw a pale and sweaty face and obvious signs of pain.  She turned the car toward Main Street and headed to the hospital, all the time asking me questions about how long this had been going on and exactly what my symptoms were, gathering as much information as she could in case I lost conscientiousness. The next day I was transported to the Regional Hospital in St. George, about 40 miles away, and received two stents to open blocked arteries. As soon as the doctor would allow it, I was back in the pool at SUU where I was a part time assistant pool manager and enjoyed lowering myself into the pool from my Jazzy power chair and swimming as though my Parkinson’s had been cured. I had even had to pass the Red Cross lifesaving course before I was hired at the pool.

In 2007 I lost the use of my right hand, which collapsed into a tight fist; I could only extend my fingers by prying them loose with my left hand.  Many months later I was told that I had ulnar nerve damage that had caused my hand to be useless to me, especially as I tried to pull my body through the water.  I made plastic paddles to which I strapped my pried open hand, and I was back in the water again; this time I would not return to competition (at least not formal racing), but, I pushed myself to compensate for the “fist stroke”.

In July of 2008 while visiting my brother, Walter, in El Cajon, California I was working alone on a wood project and fell backward on the driveway hitting my head and injuring my neck.  A trip to the hospital revealed that the Degenerative Disc Disease had done serious damage to my cervical spine, and I underwent surgery on all the vertebrae in my neck.  My two week visit to my brother’s was extended to six weeks as I worked to regain function at an inpatient rehab facility.  Without the pain of the injury I could have imagined myself at a country club, what with the pretty therapists, great food, big screen TV, outdoor dining at umbrella covered tables and even golf lessons in the beautifully landscaped gardens under the warm California sun.  The only thing missing was a swimming pool, and I couldn’t wait to get back in the water again.    

In mid-September of 2009 I returned from the Submarine Reunion in San Diego, anticipating our 50^th high school reunion in October.  As we drove home from the airport I mentioned that I was tired and short of breath; Carol and our friend Delores said that it was probably because of the trip and all the eating out that we had done. I also mentioned that I had had some tightness in my chest before the trip.  After some discussion, we decided that if I wasn’t feeling better in the morning I would go to the hospital and get things checked out.  Morning came and with it the visit to the hospital; by then I was having real chest pain and the doctors scheduled me for an angiogram.  I had some serious artery blockage and an angioplasty was attempted but they couldn’t get through the calcified plaque.  Another angioplasty was scheduled for the following day and this time the artery was dissected.   Things went from bad to worse and after three weeks in ICU during which time I “coded” having had a massive heart attack and other complications, I was transferred to the University of Utah Medical Center for an emergency mitral valve replacement and bypass that saved my life. The details of this hospitalization is another whole story, but in November I was transferred to an inpatient rehab hospital and began a month long recovery before being sent home for Christmas. In February of 2010 I returned to the hospital for a pacemaker.  Finally, in March I was able to get back in the water; swimming much more slowly, but happy to be in my element again.  

In 2010 we moved to Enumclaw, Washington. Then, in 2011, after several bouts with congestive heart failure and severely diminished heart function (25% ejection fraction), I returned to the hospital to have my pacemaker replaced by an ICD (pacemaker with a defibrillator) so I’ve been banished from the swimming pool again.

When I had had the surgery on my back in 2004, the doctor told me that I should be able to get about four years of benefit from the lamonectomy.  Well, it’s been eight years and today I had cortisone injections in the hope that I can get enough relief from the pain that has finally returned, to be able to get back in the pool and back to the Cardiac Rehab Program I had started at the Seattle, VA.  I may only be able to “water walk” with the Seniors at the Enumclaw City Pool, but…

 …I still don’t know how or when to quit… ...don’t want to learn either!

*see “Hanging on the Wall”, an earlier blog post

Don's Cradles

Mission Bells for Judie's Grandbabies

Every girl wants a cradle....

....every man needs

              meaningful work.

Don in his tiny shop in Cedar City, UT

For Brooke

For Lisa

For Rachel

When Don was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1992, he was teaching electronics and math at Auburn High School in Auburn, WA.  In 1994-95 he taught on a reduced schedule, but just didn't have the stamina to keep up with the kids and the demands of the job. In June of 1995 our daughter Rachel graduated from Auburn High; we sold our bookstore and our house in Pacific, WA and moved to Utah with the two youngest girls. After working the summer at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, Rachel returned to Seattle to attend the University of Washington and Jessica began her Junior year of high school in Cedar City, Utah. Don was trying to deal with his Parkinson's (new symptoms, new medications and a new doctor); he had met Kenny Benson who lived directly across the street and had advanced Parkinson's.  Kenny was a mirror image of what Parkinson's could do to the body and what the future might bring, but he was also an inspiration (see the blog post "Hanging on the Wall"). Don watched Kenny build whirly-gigs in his little tool shed and knew that retirement, even with a disability, needed to be more stimulating if he was going to survive and thrive.  By January, Don had decided to enroll in a woods class at Southern Utah University, about four blocks up the street from our house.  The instructor in the woods workshop was Dr. Mike McGarvey who had just arrived from Kentucky; Don and Mike would become lifelong friends. Mike asked Don what he wanted to make in the class and Don thought that a reloading bench would be something he could use, but Dr. McGarvey said that was too big a project; so Don went home to come up with a "simpler" project.  As Don and Jessica sat on the porch steps after dinner and watched the lightning play on the mountains to the east of us, Jessica said, "Daddy, would you build me a cradle?" Jessica knew that Don had built a cradle for her oldest sister, Pam and she was afraid that his Parkinson's symptoms would be too severe for that kind of a project when she was old enough to marry and have a baby. Don couldn't turn her down, so he presented the idea to Mike who thought they could find a pattern for something simple.  But, Don had other ideas; he would design the cradle himself; he wanted it to be unique; a cradle just for Jessica.  This was the beginning of Don's love affair with wooden cradles and his friendship with Mike McGarvey.  Cradle building has kept Don happy and busy for most of the two decades since his Parkinson's diagnosis, but when we moved back to Washington two years ago, Don's symptoms had progressed to the point where using his power tools was just not safe any more.  Jessica is married now and has two children who have used the cradle her Daddy built; nearly a dozen other young mothers are glad that Don and Dr. McGarvey kept the friendship and the cradle building going, to produce, with love, these beds for little sleepyheads.

For Misty

For Meegan

Hanging on a Wall (a story about how the impact of one man's life with Parkinson's gave another man reason to live well with PD) by Don Ennis

Cedar Mountain's red rock cliffs remind me that when I came to Cedar City to stay, I was bruised and bleeding and hanging on a wall.  I came to a place where what remained of my family responsibility would be safe while my tremorous right hand and arm held long enough to put things in order.  I didn't come here to live, I came to die.  I came here to cling to the wall as long as I could with Parkinson's disease.  I came to a place where I could choose the time of my letting go, only to be reminded that letting go is not the choice.  Gravity will force the letting go.  Humanity will hang on.  I've been here before.

When I was eight or nine, I lived in the first house, in the fist town I can remember: Sedamsville.  Sedamsville is on the very outskirts of Cincinnati.  Dad used to say the city limits were at the maple tree, half way up the hill to the house, so the house itself wasn't in the city.  Don't hold me to what Dad used to say.  Dad used to say a lot of things I continue to believe solely out of parental respect.  The "city limits" did, however, give us license to shoot our twenty-two rifles from the porch so long as we aimed away from the city and the town.  Of Sedamsville, my brother Tim (who was really named Richard) once remarked, "It was a place painted by Norman Rockwell."

By this, he didn't mean Rockwell stopped by with his easel to capture the place on canvas.  Tim meant that Norman Rockwell painted the place into existence.  Descriptive hyperbole, perhaps; but since the only other philosophical statement I can remember Tim uttering these fifty years has been, "Everyone should believe in something.  I believe I'll have another beer." the Sedamsville statement about Rockwell is significant if not accurate.

My childhood in Sedamsville was idyllic and halcyon.  I one had a college English professor who red lined "halcyon" in a paper I had written and she editorialized with the word: "archaic".  I havent' used the word since, but how else can I describe a place where a real stern wheeler steamboat boarded half the town's people every summer and serenaded them with a steam calliope on the way to the amusement park up river.  How else can I describe a place improved out of existence, a place where a troop of lost boys once roamed. 

I was the youngest of the boys.  My cousin Eugene was the oldest.  Actually, my brother Walter was the oldest, but Walter was studious and responsible, like I would one day become, and he couldn't properly be counted as one of the troop, but when I was eight or nine, I was one of the boys, and in between me and Eugene were cousins Ron, Tom, Bob (his real name was Herbert) and my brother, Tim.  Occasionally we picked up a non-relative, but they never lasted.

We were engaged in a perpetual game of follow the leader, and to last required blood ties.  As the game wore on the leader got bolder. The rule was, if the leader failed his chosen obstacle, he went to the end of the line.  I was the youngest and usually occupied that position.  The line stopped at a retaining wall.  We had walked up the driveway around the old milk wagon garage and stood on the wall overlooking the garage roof.  The roof pitched downward from left to right so the end of the roof on the right was lower than the wall.  The distance from the wall to the roof was more than a step, but less than a running jump.  It was more than a standing flat-footed jump, but jumping wasn't the problem.  The slant of the roof was the problem.  Once you hurled yourself from the wall to the roof, you had to stick or you would fall to the ground, only there wasn't any ground, there was only glass.  Layers of broken glass milk bottles, deposited by generations of pre-ecology milkmen, hid the dirt, with peril to barefooted boys.  Once you made it to the roof, you had to scamper up the roof to get above the wall to jump back.  Here was a challenge.  Eugene, the present leader, and nimblest of us all, jumped to the roof; scampered to the correct height and returned to the wall.  The rest followed in similar formation, except for me.  There are times when Darwin's concept of evolution is flawed.  Some of us choose a poultry genealogy.  I chickened out!  Shame among catcall clucking invited me not to the end of the line; it demanded my removal from the line, from the troop, from the tribe.

I was alone for days or weeks (years and eternity to an eight year old boy) until need and pride brought me back to the wall alone; still emotionally covered with feathers, but resolute.  There was no way I would not jump.  I had calculated the improbability of success; I was sure I would fail, as sure as I knew I would jump.  I thought about the glass.  I saw myself roll off the end of the roof.  I saw bare feet from the broken milk bottles' view.  I saw the blood.  I feared the loneliness.  I feared the shame of tribal uselessness more.  I jumped.  No slow motion.  No arboreal flight.  Electron-tunneling, timeless speed.  My feet on rough concrete one second and at the same second my feet on asphalt tar-papered roof.  No time between the two events.  Then, feet, hands, legs, arms and body "velcroed" to the roof.  I was safe.  I was redeemed.  I only needed to get back to the wall and from the wall to the troop.  Jumping back was easy.  I jumped from just below the roof peak.  Gravity did most of the work.  My feet touched the wall.  Overconfidence did the damage.  M feet touched the wall only briefly, and then my rib cage caught the concrete wall's vertical and horizontal meeting, forcing air from my lungs and blood from broken skin.  Pain slowed time.  I grabbed the fagged concrete; it grabbed flesh.  Gravity accelerated boy mass and speed.  My chin made rapid contact with the place my ribs had been.  Tooth on chipped tooth bathed in blood behind my lips.  Time stopped.

I woke up bruised and bleeding and hanging on the wall.  I hung there eternally, with gravel impregnated hands.  Time and gravity were my enemies; the glass below my bare feet was my end.  I felt fingers wrap around my wrist, and although my own fingers were determined to defeat gravity, they were not prepared to overcome levitation, nor could they fight both forces at the same time.  I floated upwards, my hands outstretched above my head, in a slow ascending dive; propelled by salvation in the form of an older neighborhood boy.  He was, perhaps, only several years my senior, but at least a head taller and strong enough to get me off the wall.  I can remember the general area in which he lived.  I can recall his build and the shape of his face.  I distinctly remember he was wearing a white shirt that day.  Sedamsville was not, and is not, a white shirt community.  Although I knew his name the, and although I remember the wall incident in vivid detail, I cannot today recall who he was.  I know who pulled me from the wall in Cedar City; another neighborhood boy, several years older and at least a head taller, and strong enough to get me off the wall: Ken Benson.

Thirty years of Parkinson's disease and an aneurysm "as big as a grapefruit" preceded Ken's trip across 300 West to greet me on a clear, southern Utah, June afternoon.  Ken is difficult to understand (one of the many Parkinsonian symptoms), but I remember his first words to me: "Do you know that I have Parkinson's disease?"  Had I not just thought, "that man has Parkinson's disease" and had the thought not come with a euphoric spiritual assurance?  I can only vaguely define in retrospect, his greeting may have seemed totally incongruous.  I smiled and offered him my trembling hand and softly said, "I know.  Do you know I have Parkinson's disease too?'  I hung around Cedar City for about a week before I had to be in Washington D.D. to bless a new granddaughter and to witness the Fourth of July celebration on the Washington mall.  All that week I watched Ken from my front porch.  He raced up and down the street on his three-wheeled scooter, crossing when he wanted to and waving at everyone.  People often slowed or stopped their cars to wave or say hello; pedestrians always stopped to talk.  If the city fathers ever tire of the geographic addresses imposed by the Mormon village model, 300 West in Cedar City will have to become Benson Boulevard, not because Ken's grandfather farmed most of the area traversed by 300 West, but because Ken "owns" this part of the street!

One Thursday morning after I had returned from my trip, I began to know my new neighbor as I began to confirm a friendship.  I watched Ken attack a trash can.  Attack is the best word I can use, for that's the way it appeared to me.  Ken grabbed the big awkward container by its handle and tipped it on its side.  He poked inside with his cane and righted the can and dragged it about.  I was reminded of some video footage I had seen of a grizzly bear in Yellowstone Park playing with a fifty-gallon drum.  I watched this game for a full fifteen minutes and I don't know to this day what it was all about; it really doesn't matter.  I learned that this man doesn't give up.  That matters!

I don't know when I first saw Ken stand up.  I knew he had been a football player.  His autobiography, which he let me read, says he was a fourth round draft pick for the Bears and the 49'ers.  His son, Did, always mentions first round.  I don't know the difference.  I suspected Ken was big; I mean really BIG; I didn't know how big until I saw him stand up.  I don't remember when I first saw Ken stand up.  I can tell you I was impressed.  Ken Benson is a giant!  But six-foot eight and three hundred plus pounds are one kind of giant; I was more impressed by another measure.  I was more impressed the first time I saw Ken give one of his grandchildren a ride to school

A giant on a three-wheeled scooter, giving a ride to a child who love him is a scene size cannot describe.  It is an act that taught me, despite affliction I could still be useful.  I gave meaning to what I learned on the wall.  Hang on!  There is reason to endure to the end!