Brain Exercises

I spent a very interesting 24 hours in Houston. It was the big day ... I volunteered myself to be a guinea pig in a study to see if there are any early biomarkers for Parkinson's Disease (PD) in people who show no symptoms of PD, but have REM Behavior Disorder (RBD). RBD means that I physically act out my dreams, which can lead to some very interesting and at times dangerous circumstances. I figured anything I can do to help find a solution to RBD is a step in the right direction.

I went to the Clinical Research Unit at the Hermann Memorial Hospital and met the lead researcher, Dr. Schiess. She is the spitting image of my friend Ellie back in Honolulu. Dr. Schiess put me through about two hours of neurological tests, then sent me down to the MRI room. I did a functional MRI that lasted another two hours, then after a quick dinner, I went to the sleep lab for a long night of trying to sleep with electrodes pasted all over my head and body. In the morning, a quick shower under a shower head that provided nothing more than a slight drip, then back to the Clinical Research Unit, where I had a lumbar puncture. Most of the cerebrospinal fluid will be frozen for later research. Following the lumbar puncture, I had to lay flat on my back for four hours, then another eight hours of bed rest back at the hotel. I won't know everything until later, but for now, I passed with flying colors. On the PD scale of 1-200, I scored a low 8, meaning that I don't exhibit any PD traits aside from the RBD and a poor sense of smell (16 out of 40!!!).

So now, we are back on the road, trying to avoid storms and floods. We decided to try the southern route to the east coast, then follow the Atlantic seaboard northward. And as I'm writing this, the Weather Channel is warning about a possible tornado in Charlotte ... just west of our planned route.

Anyway, we left Houston and headed east, stopping in Lake Charles, Louisiana for lunch. We wanted fish, so got a recommendation from a local, ending up at a place that served catfish, crawfish, gator, shrimp, and gumbo. We went for the crawfish, shrimp and catfish in what turned out to be an amazingly tasty meal.

We then headed across the Achafalaya basin, witnessing the flooding from an elevated position along the Interstate, and decided to bypass New Orleans and stop for the night in Baton Rouge. The floods were not as impressive as the media make them out to be, but it is certainly a huge headache for all the folks who lost property. The only problem with our day's journey was that the hotel we found turned out to be pretty dodgey. In the room next to ours were a couple of gangsta types with droopy shorts and gang signals. They eyed us, then checked out our car ... we wouldn't have slept a minute, knowing that we were likely to wake up in the morning (if we woke up) with no car. So we got our money back, reloaded the car, and headed another ten miles down the road, where we are now ensconced in a very comfortable La Quinta.

I've been getting a good deal of brain exercise, but not much body exercise. We may knock off our journey early tomorrow and take time for a good long walk along one of the gulf beaches.