Peter M. Hunt's Blog, page 4

Eternal resilience

Living landlocked is not for me – being close to the ocean is a must. From my long-time hobby, shipwreck diving, to my first real job as a navy A-6 Intruder carrier pilot, to where I choose to live today, the ocean’s influence on my life has been nothing short of monumental. Military flight training appealed to my adolescent mind. But the notion of launching from a ship thousands of miles out to sea, with no emergency shore-based airport available, compelled me to join the navy. The sea was my h...

The new, old me

While editing past blogs for a future book, I came across a piece written on February 14, 2021, six weeks after knee replacement surgery, while convalescing on the long road to recovery.

From Humbled (again): “…An increased mental fogginess and a slow-moving, painful stiffness of every muscle and joint in my body have begun to dominate my intensifying ‘off’ time …When ‘off,’ I cannot drive, think clearly, or converse. Maybe this is due to post-surgical inactivity and lack of rigorous exercise...

Yoga

Although not started until nearly a decade after Parkinson’s diagnosis, hot yoga has been a mainstay in my fight with the disease for control of mind, body, and soul. Last week saw the tenth anniversary of Chrysalis Hot Yoga, a comfortable place with authentic people that rides high in my heart.

Over the last nine years, I have dedicated to the studio as much as six days a week to as little as a single weekly session, depending on surgeries and my motivation as Parkinson’s progression acceler...

The empowering choice

Recently, I flew to the East Coast to see my son, Jared. It was a great visit, with no pressure to do anything; simply being in the other’s presence was enough. Before I knew it, our time together was over, and we were pulling up to the airport on the visit’s last day. Jared and I hugged a long goodbye. I calmly turned and entered the terminal in a significantly positive mood modification from the near-debilitating panic attack six months ago during my flight home from Houston.

What did I cha...

Cold comfort

I’ve been aware of the positive effects of even brief exposure to cold water since 2012 when five friends and I flipped our raft on a white-water rafting trip. As we drifted downstream in the icy river, I discovered regained capabilities not exercised in the over seven years since, at the time, my PD diagnosis. I attributed the effect to adrenalin but had a hunch that something else was in play.

It wasn’t until 2014, during my search for the Lost Intruder, that I could apply a touch of scient...

A supreme freedom

Several people have asked me to provide a summary of my anti-Parkinson’s disease strategy as seen posted on social media video reels. With such a wide variety of symptoms, Parkinson’s is indeed an ala carte disease, manifesting differently in each patient. These strategies work for me, but they are sure to prove ineffective for some others with Parkinson’s. Please treat them as gentle suggestions.

1. Exercise strenuously but imaginatively, pushing hard until well outside your comfort zone whi...

Happy to be wrong

At the beginning of last November, I posted Life’s Grandest Question which tells of a shared experience with a dog-loving neighbor. I called him Mr. Johnson. While on my regular dog-walking route, I was shocked to see a much beaten down—but not beaten—Mr. Johnson, hunched over, skin gray and sallow. That day, just three months ago, I was confident that I would never see him alive again.

And so, imagine my shock today when I spied Mr. Johnson slowly maneuvering his stooped form into the passen...

She is my mother.

Familiar music fills the air, energizing the room’s collective mood from under the heavy thumb of malingering helplessness. Discrete instruments meld, joining soul to the beat of an atavistic song, summoning all to share in an era of familial innocents. Dancing Queen plays loudly, as it should, its fetching beauty stoking memory, returning to family’s first conception.

Anciently pure, happy memories of loving dependency join the family profoundly in amorphous togetherness.

Captured feet ta...

Without reservation or apology.

Yesterday, my mother’s health took a marked turn for the worse, accompanied by a dear family friend’s recommendation that I expedite my trip east. The family friend  helped out when my sister passed away in 2003, and also when my father died in 2019. When she makes a  recommendation, I listen. We moved my flight up a week.

It was only four months back that I nearly had a panic attack traveling home alone from Houston after the birth of our grandson.

The prospect of voluntarily putting myse...

The brutal language of necessity

A little over a month ago, I posted a blog called “Comeback” with a video of me attempting yoga on the boat rail. It’s been a hard reversal of progress, comparing my yoga skills of eight years ago with today, as the realization hits that regardless of effort, all my mental and physical abilities will continue to fade.

The pre-deep brain stimulation yoga ended successfully, unlike the recent version where I fell in the water. Pride’s harsh language reminds me that I will not beat this thing. D...