Posted 6/29/23
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” -1 Corinthians 6:19
Quite a last 10 days, friends! Thank you for your patience waiting for another piece of Digital Cornbread to drop. 🙂 Here is where the last week+ has had me:
Sat 6/17- Preparing fliers and other stuff, with extensive, wonderful help from my family.
6/18- Father’s Day- Church, then headed to KC to spend the night and have one last good night’s sleep. 🙂
6/19 (Juneteenth)- Got to the Board of Trade Lofts at 5:55 and started stairs at 6. Made it about 3 hours before multiple media appearances (several short things for Fox, one for 41) mixed up my mojo. 🙂 It was very good, though. I went up. I went down. I went up, I went down. Pretty easy concept, but it got tiring as the day went on for sure… I also discovered the hard way that my compression socks likely had latex, of which I am allergic. I got really bad, stinging stripes and sores on my calves, which I kept the rest of the week as well. 🙁 I finished with 35 ups and downs of 12 floors. Then we headed out, still a sweaty mess to Planet Fitness in Independence for a shower and a Aquamassage bed nappy. We ate a good meal and rested for a few minutes, then off we went. Then we drove the 3+ hours to St. Louis and got there at around 8-9 after a few stops here and there. We crashed and burned in bed toot sweet. The folks at the Lofts were outstanding! It was a very nice place too! Here is a picture from there…more to come:
6/20 Enterprise Center- We got there about 5:55, but circled for quite a while before finding our wonderful help. I got started doing stairs about 6:20. I decided that straight up and down was mentally tiring, so I switched to squares. Up, over, down, over, up. 🙂 It helped to have some break from the ups and downs. Remember, friends, to have grace…I am nearly 300 pounds. 😉 I completed 140 ovals and many more shorter circles…LOTS o’steps. It was a wonderful time. The folks were soooo hospitable! They has every banner and ad that were electronic rockin’ the Alzheimer’s Association Longest Day logo! Very encouraging! I was pretty pooped after there. We headed asap to Cape Girardeau and got there at about 7. Here are a couple of pix from there:
6/21 (Wednesday…the days started running together) was at Cape Girardeau. This is a great little river town. It was also the first outdoor day. I got started around 6 and had a couple more interviews. It was very hot and their steps, carved in the side of a hill, were much steeper than I was used to. How I worked the route out there was steps to the top, then back down, then down the street to the riverfront to its long set of steps. The river was very windy and it, despite being hot wind, helped. 🙂 I did oodles of FB lives there too. It was a wonderful, if tiring day for sure. I finished with 20 of the full/long route to the water, 12 of just the stairs, and many, many of the shorter stairs. (I won’t give you the exact number until tomorrow when I announce the total steps contest. Then we headed to Planet Fitness for the shower/Aquabed combo again…then drove nearly 5 hours home to Bolivar. The drive was very crampy, muscle-case… My Yelp review would be zero stars…
6/22 (Thursday) We headed out from Bolivar and landed at Hammons Tower just in time for a 6am live interview. Then I started stairs shortly after. Brittany gave us the tour and my bride set up shop at the Floor 1. The building had 21 floors…long ones at that. It is the tallest building anywhere near us… My plan there was up, then down, then out the building, down the alley to Jordan Valley Park, the location of the Walk to End Alzheimer’s on 9/23 in Springfield. There there are steps that lead to the bottom of the valley to the stage. I completed 14 circuits, each taking at least 30 minutes. The day was quite hot and the stairs were warm too. Quite a day indeed. 🙂
6/23 I worked and caught up on a week missed. I love my job and wouldn’t have called in in a million years. SeniorAge is a great group of friends. 🙂
6/24 The Walk to End Alzheimer’s Committee, on which I am proud to be a member, had our big Walk kickoff. Chalk for the Walk at the historic C-Street Market in North Springfield. I got there at 7am and was creaky, but did ok all day. It was a great event of fellowship, sharing Alz info, and the like…until it started raining toward the end. We packed up and headed home.
6/25 We went to church. It was life giving as always. 🙂 Then I dropped off my bride and some furniture we hauled with my daughter and I headed to see my mom, about 25 miles away. She was very sleepy and pretty much unresponsive until I broke out the Alan Jackson Hymns on my phone, which perked her up a little. I then left and picked up my bride and we went home and crashed.
6/26 I left at 4am back to St. Louis to Washington University for two days of clinical study work with much smarter people than me. 🙂 They are studying the 3 main types of PET scans and I had 2 of them on consecutive days. They inject you with a radioactive tracer, then you sit for varying amounts of time before being put in a machine to look at your brain glowing. Day 1 was a MRI/PET combo machine that I was in for 70 minutes.
6/27 was day two of the PET scans. This one was longer waiting for the tracer and shorter in the PET scanner machine, this one only doing PET (no MRI). It is easier because you can wear street clothes. The first day you had to wear their clothes and remove all metal. Much easier… Once done I all but ran out and got in my car and headed back to Springfield because my Zoom support group started at 4:30. I left at 1…and it takes 3:30 to get to my support group building. I drove quite fast and made it with 2 minutes to spare. 🙂 After the Zoom support group was the in-person one. We had a nice sized group and it want very well. I left the building at 8, and headed home…getting home at 9. Then I crashed again in bed…
6/28 and today…work as normal. Saw mom yesterday after work and will again tonight.
Nearly 2000 miles of driving. Well over 100k steps, most of which were stairs.
Why on Earth? Because I hate Alzheimer’s and related dementias. I just do. It needs to go away and it will take money, awareness/media coverage, and really smart folks. I tried to assist in all of these components and do so in the 4 Corners of the State. Mission accomplished…for this little 10 day period. More…much more is needed.
I will have my fundraiser up until midnight tomorrow night. Here is the link:
https://act.alz.org/site/TR?pg=personal&px=14575499&fr_id=16164
Together we have raised over $2500 so far and we may just get some more in in the next 36 hours. 🙂 Thank you sooooooooooo much for every penny. They are prudent with the money and are doing their absolute best! We were on TV/the paper 10 times. We made lots of friends along the way. As of Friday at 12:01am we switch gears and focus on the Walk to End Alzheimer’s. To find the walk nearest you, go here or just visit alz.org. You can also call 1-800-272-3900 to the 24/7 helpline and they can point you in the right direction.
There are shoo many people to thank, and I have already through email and other means, but I must brag first on my Lord who sustained me and gave me peace through this long period, and on my beautiful bride. She was incredible in planning, in encouragement, in making sure I ate and drank enough, and even with handling the media. She is a blessing to me and has been since well before 1990 when we got married. I love you Suz. 🙂
#EndALZ
#4C4
#RunninTilImPurple
Soooo….what’s next? A cure is my preference. I don’t know. I have some ideas to get Guinness…the book of records, not the beer, involved although I probably need some of the latter to loosen my sensibilities. This was a serious shark jump plus some. Sigh…I hate this disease, for me and for you.
Update: Not a lot new with mom. She continues to slide. She is unresponsive more often than not and she still is painfully slow eating. However, my sister and I visited yesterday and she still had a half-smile for us. She is a wonderful mom…I hate this for her.
REMINDER: Every donor can guess the total number of steps and of stairs for a chance to win a signed (by the author) copy of The 36 Hour Day! Email me at mark.applegate@senioragemo.org or text me at 417-955-2513 with your mane and your guesses. 🙂 It will happen this weekend! 🙂
