“We had three senior dogs, and we lost all of them because they were just at that age. One of them, Pablo, was a medical response dog. I trained him because I have two brain aneurysms. I was having neurological events where I would lose vision and drop to the floor, have no balance, just projectile vomiting until my electrolytes would be depleted. So the last event was real serious. I fell at Lee College, and Pablo went through the whole building to find the one person who could help me. I ended up going to the ER. While the ambulance was coming, and they kept trying to talk to me on the phone and keep me alert, Pablo kept pulling at my hair if I wasn’t responsive. He knew it was a grave situation.

“I haven’t had problems in years. But I knew how useful a medical response dog could be, especially with David dealing with Parkinson’s. His gait is so deteriorated and falls are such an issue. We got Percy about six months ago. Within a week, we could tell that he had the temperament and the intelligence to be a medical response dog. He knows that David is frail, and he is constantly checking in. Where is he? Is he upright? He notices that David’s going to fall before David falls. So we immediately started training him. The goal is for him to pass the public access test. So not only can he help us at home, but also when we’re out and about. I’ve been training him with a lot of help from the regional trainer for PetSmart. I’m building on everything that she teaches me.

“I have a master of fine arts in creative writing, so I’m working on my own narrative about this whole thing. I think it’s very ironic that we’ve been training a dog to protect us in public when we’ve not been able to be in public because of the coronavirus pandemic. But he’s the one who gives us hope that we’re going to get out of here. We keep training every day with that goal in mind. And it’s funny. We always sing with our son, Alex, ‘Who Let the Dogs Out.’ And now we joke that we’re waiting for the World Health Organization — the WHO — to let us out.”

— Kathleen Sydnor (with David Whitcomb and Percy)

Kathleen and David are retired. She was an English and humanities instructor at Lee College for 25 years, and continues part-time teaching Humanities on the Go, a program she developed. He practiced law 25 years for the Department of the Treasury (Internal Revenue Service) and Department of Justice.

Related:

• Good days, bad days with Parkinson’s

• Seeing world through autistic son’s eyes

The post Medical response dog watching for falls appeared first on The Baytown Project.

K: “David was working as a federal attorney, and he started to have trouble with executive functioning. He was always the go-to guy in the office, his supervisors said. He was the one who mentored all the young attorneys and managed a huge caseload. But he started having some problems keeping track of things. The telltale sign was the tremors.”

D: “When I was driving, my right hand would start fiddling on the steering wheel. I didn’t know what it was. It didn’t hurt. It wasn’t sore. I just noticed this shaking. Then I started losing my balance sometimes. I’d be walking outside and trip on a crack in the sidewalk. My feet weren’t quite lifting up high enough. And going up stairs, my right leg just wasn’t working like it should.”

K: “Right before we got married, he got the diagnosis of Parkinson’s. We see Dr. Jankovic at Baylor, who is world renowned for his research in the disease. He said that he usually tells his patients, ‘I have bad news and good news. The bad news is you have Parkinson’s. The good news is that it’s tremor-dominant.’ But he told us, ‘I have bad news and bad news. You have Parkinson’s disease and it’s gait-dominant.’ It’s a more rapidly advancing form of Parkinson’s. It’s more associated with Parkinson’s dimentia, which David has.”

D: “I still know how to do a lot of things, but I can’t always execute. And if we go to a movie, I’ll lose track of characters. I keep asking Kathleen, ‘Is he the one who was in the car?’ Or if I’m talking to somebody, I’ll sometimes lose track of what they’re talking about. It’s pretty frustrating. Then, the last year or two, I’ve started to fall. I’ll just be walking, and my leg will buckle. I’ll lose my balance.”

K: “It’s hard because for Parkinson’s patients, you’re not the same on any given day. You can have three great days, and you’re going, ‘Well, I don’t need to worry about using the electric scooter because I’m doing just fine with this walker.’ And all of a sudden, out of the blue, bam, not a good day.”

D: “Until I get up and start moving each morning, I don’t know if it will be a good day or a bad day.”

— Kathleen Sydnor and David Whitcomb

Related:

• Medical response dog watching for falls

• Seeing world through autistic son’s eyes

The post Good days, bad days with Parkinson’s appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I’m going off to University of Texas in two weeks. I’m going to be studying psychology. I want to become a criminal prosecutor. I’ve always admired lawyers and the thought of finding justice.

“Last summer I was invited to a law and advocacy program at Yale, and I just loved it. We got to try a murder case. On the day of the trial, you were either a lawyer in the morning or a witness or the defendant in the afternoon. I got to work both sides. The case was set in a redneck kind of town. Apparently, a lady’s husband killed someone, and she was trying to defend him by saying he’s not that type of guy. But everyone around was saying that he’s really violent to even his own wife and kids. I got to play the wife. I did this little country accent and everything, and the judge gave me good points for that. It was a lot of fun.

“We also learned a lot about ourselves, about how to be more of a leader and to be more independent. I learned that I can actually communicate with people better than I thought I could. I always considered myself a shy person, but that experience changed me. I thank my mom so much for letting me go there. Now, this is the only thing I want to do.”

— Doris Umezulike

The post As a lawyer, she wants to play role in finding justice appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I was a pretty shy kid in high school. I didn’t say much because I was afraid if I did, I would be made fun of or ridiculed. So I pretty much kept my thoughts and everything to myself. Making friends was challenging. I had a few, but not that many. I figured that college would be the place to help me grow into someone who people take notice of and respect.

“My goal is to become an attorney, so I started doing debate to work on speaking confidently in front of people. It’s been sort of a struggle. I get a little nervous and I’ve stuttered a little bit in the debate rounds, but I’m learning more about how to boost my confidence and how to speak properly.

“I feel like my social skills have come a long way; way above where I expected them to be. I’m accomplishing so much.”

— Adam Naiser, 19

The post From high school to college, his confidence grows appeared first on The Baytown Project.