September 8, 2024 • 12 mins
Jessica talks about her story with Parkinson's and an upcoming fundraiser. Also listen to her podcast The Secret Life of Parkinson's
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Uh, oh, we must be getting serious. Mikayla just whipt
on her glasses.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Either that or my eyesight's really getting bad at forty six.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Oh yeah, well wait till your fifty six. Because I'm
squinting for everything these days.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm going to throw on the glasses to read what
we got here.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
We're having a really important conversation and we were just
telling our guests that in March we will have been
together on the show The Matter Show for seven years
and we've never had this conversation.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
No, we haven't about Parkinson's. And I think Parkinson's impacts
more people. We just don't talk about it on a
regular basis. I think it impacts more people than we think.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
So.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Jessica Krauser is in a founder of the five K
for JK, and we're so excited to have you here.
I met you a long time ago, and I think
it did a story with you when I was Channel
four for something Else.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Yeah, it was something I think with Cheryl Sandberg's book
came out.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yes, Lean Lean and we talked about.
Speaker 5 (00:53):
Leaning in at that point and then I leaned way out. Well,
And it's.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Funny Jessica because she's like you were probably a teenage
year when Mindy was on the air in Youngstown.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Say that for WYTV.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Timing wise, it sounds like you might have been in
junior high early high school. See you kind of remember, Mindy? Yeah, yeah,
I was gonna say it's a small world too, Mindy.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well, we need to have this conversation. So what is it?
Five K for JK?
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Yeah, So it's actually it's it started out as a walk,
and it's it's it's an annual walk. Now we're on
our fourth one. My friends started this though for me,
so back in twenty twenty one. I was diagnosed with
Parkinson's in twenty nineteen, so I was thirty seven, and
you know, I have kids, I'm married, I'm working, so
(01:38):
I'm still going about doing life as is. But my
friends are always like, there's something like we want to
be able to do for you. And so a couple
of them got together and they said, let's let's do
a walk and we'll have the easiest thing to do
was going to the Michael J. Fox website, you know,
and they have everything set up.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
You can be a fundraiser.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
So we went ahead and did that and we started
raising money really quickly and a lot of money, Like
pretty quickly we were up to twenty five thousand dollars
and we're like, oh wow, this is great. And then
you know, we were talking about like different venues of
where we're going to have the walk.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
What we're going to do, and then for whatever reason,
I was like, you know.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Maybe we should turn this into a nonprofit because we
needed something to have like liability insurance of like doing
events like this and if we were going to continue
to do it. So we literally just kind of pulled
it together, like so myself, my friend Michelle Adams, carry Schaeffer,
Melissa Carlson like got together and then we said let's
just you know, let's put the paperwork down, do it,
and we'll start raising money here locally. Because going back
(02:35):
to what you said, nobody talks about Parkinson's and I
wanted to talk about it because I had I had
nobody to talk about it with.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
And so we turned the walk into a nonprofit.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
So you were thirty seven when you were first diagnosed.
Isn't that young?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I've always heard that, Yes, like sixty years old is
the average?
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Yes, so the average is like sixty plus, And but
to be honest, I think it's only like five percent
of people. That five percent of the Parkinson's population have
young or young onset, so young onset is anything under
the age of fifty. But I mean, I have a
group of women on texts, like we're all over the US,
some in Canada, there's like twenty five of us, and
(03:14):
I'm like, there's I know that there's way more than
five percent of that one million people that have Parkinson's.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
So it's just you know, peop.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Doctors don't want to, you know, say or think that
it's Parkinson's because you don't fit the mold.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So tell us a little bit about those early symptoms
and signs, because that's super interesting what she just said there,
mindy that doctors don't see it necessarily at first. So
how did you know in your specific case, what are
some of those early signs?
Speaker 4 (03:40):
So mine actually started with a tremor, So it was
a hand tremor on my right hand, on my right side.
I didn't really pay attention to like what side. I
just knew like I would shake every once in a while, like, well,
that's kind of weird. And I just started a new job.
But it was a smaller company and I remember I
was like giving a presentation kind of like at a
table like this that we're sitting at, and you know,
I've given presentation in front of hundreds of people before,
(04:01):
and like, I'm not a nervous not anymore at that point,
and I was.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
Shaking and I'm like, what is the matter with me?
Speaker 4 (04:07):
And I'm like, so I'm sitting on my hands because
I'm like, I'm not nervous, but I don't want to
look like an idiot like raisst new girl. Yeah, So
I talked to my family primary care physician and she's like,
it's probably just an essential trumor, but if it starts
to really bother you, you know, let me know and
I'll have you see a neurologist. And I was like
I was thirty five at that point.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
I was like neurologist. I'm like, dude, like I'm fine.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
So time went on and I was training for a
half marathon first and only I'll ever do with my sister,
and I I was had so much pain and cramping
in my calf and my foot was like constantly cramping
and like so I had like my husband or my
daughter like massaging, like literally I felt like a knot
was in my calf all the time. And so then
(04:53):
I went to a pediatrist cause I was like, you know,
I have bunions. I'm like, maybe something's going on there,
and he's like no, he's like that's fine, et cetera.
And then it was my obgyn. She was like, you're like,
I just went for any annual check up. She's like,
you're like really shaking. I'm like, I know, but I'm
like cold and it just comes out more.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
So you really didn't think anything of it, you know, not.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
I mean no, I wasn't putting all those pieces together.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, which I.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Think can happen in healthcare sometimes when we're trying to
look at ourselves.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Whether it's Parkinson's or anything.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, I don't think people want to believe the worst either.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
No, And the thing is, it's funny with Parkinson's, it
could be anything. I mean, people don't even know it,
but they're like, oh, I was constipated for years. Well
that's actually a symptom. Not that everybody has constipation. It's
gonna have Parkinson's. But like, you know, one of the
other ones I noticed is I was just very like
apathetic at times or just felt like no emotion, lack
(05:49):
of emotion, and that's part that's a symptom.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
So I was like, I put all those things together.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
But and so so young as we've established with it,
how did you take it all on? Like what was
your mindset about all of it? Once you got your diagnosis.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
I pretty much knew, like I diagnosed myself, like at
least a couple months before, because then I started looking
into it. Once I went to see my first neurologist
and he took me through a battery of tests. I
started looking into things and my mom noticed, like I
wasn't swinging my arm. She's like, why aren't you using
your arm when you're cooking. I'm like using my left arm.
I'm like, I don't know. And I was like, you know,
you have your mouse on the side of your computer.
(06:27):
I wasn't using that and I was using the other
my other hand. And somebody at work noticed that, and
so I looked into it, and I was like, I
have every single symptom, and so I knew it, so
going into it, I wasn't shocked. My husband was super shocked.
So he came out of there and just was bawling.
And I'm like oh, what is the matter with you?
(06:49):
And he's like, I just He's like, aren't you like upset?
I'm like, I guess I just told myself this is
what it was. And he was like, I just didn't
want to believe that anything was really.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
That wrong with you.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Michael j has become such a face for Parkinson's, you know,
he has really been a champion and a hero for it. Currently,
there is no cure for Parkinson's right, But Mikayla and
I look at you, we would never know that you
have Parkinson's because the treatments are pretty good. Correct.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
The treatments are good.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
I mean, but it's been the same same treatment for
like sixty years and they just keep redoing it different ways.
But there's like a brain surgery you can do and
stuff like that. But the thing with Parkinson's, it's like,
what's the I think they say something like ten percent
of it as visible and ninety percent is not. So like,
I actually have a podcast myself for Parkinson's patience called
The Secret Life of Parkinson's, and we've been doing it
(07:37):
for two years now, and we do it on videos
so you can see us. And so I have a
lot of Parkinson's. People comment, They're like, you don't even
look like you have Parkinson's. I'm like, you have Parkinson's.
You know, you're not supposed to say that to somebody else,
you know, who has it, because a lot of it
is like I have ten Like I'm not flexing, but
it looks like I'm flexing.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
Said, it looks like you have quite a gun. Actually
I love it. I do like it.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Yeah, but it's like you're you can be totally tense,
like all the time, Like I'm tense right now in
my leg.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
You just can't see it.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
I'm like co jittery, like in my shoulders and you know,
so there's a lot that you can't see because it's
not always shaking.
Speaker 5 (08:13):
This is not genetic either, right, it's.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Fifteen percent genetic, but mine, I don't It's not in
my family and I have a really big Youngstown family,
So I didn't get the genetic test. I just I'm
not ready to know all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Right, So does it just happen? Why do people get Parkinson's?
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Environmental for example, like the you know they always talk
about like pesticides, like the spray like from farms, So
people like a lot of people who are who are
in fart like rural areas usually get it more often.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
See, these are the conversations we need to have more of.
And I bet you so many people are listening right now,
blown away by that. Yeah, it's environmental, so past decide
to side.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
I mean, it could be like things like anything like
that mess up with your gut, you know, Like.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
So it's related to gut because your gun is so
connected to your brain inflammation.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
See, and I'm thinking of East Palising and the train
derailment up there and what may evolve with people there.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
You never know, You never know, I mean because even
I know a lot of people in the military, you know,
they always say, like with the agent orange and all
that stuff, there's a lot of the military of Parkinson's
and then a lot of you know, farmers are just
people who are close by those areas.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
So you're raising quite a bit of money over a
four year period of time. And what does that money
go towards in terms of helping with treatment, because I
know that's what you guys are in too right now.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
So in the beginning, we actually we did we did
dedicate all the money to the Michael J. Fox Foundation
because we didn't know what we were doing in the beginning,
and and we wanted to support for research. But then
as time was going on, you started realizing, especially with
the podcasts, where like there's not enough awareness, like, yes,
there's Michael J. Fox, and our generation knows him. The
generations below us don't know him as well, and a
(09:55):
lot of people see him as like he's severe with Parkinson's,
so like he's used to be like me. So it's
like we need to kind of bring this back and
bring education back as to what can be done.
Speaker 5 (10:06):
Because exercise is huge.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
So that's one of the things that we the money
goes towards is like exercise programs specifically for Parkinson's. So
there's a gym called pd Next Steps in Dublin. That's
the one I go to all for Parkinson's patients, and
she kicks our butt, like because the more bigger movements
you do, the better you are. So exercise actually slows
the progression. And that's like a note like there's like
(10:31):
four hundred studies on that.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
And then we also have.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
The money go towards these Parkinson's kits, so you can
order one online and we ship it to you or
to a loved one for free, and it just has
in their nice fight like do you know the hope
kits that like cancer patients can get. Yeah, it's kind
of like that, but it's it's tools that are useful
for somebody who has Parkinson's. So there's a book in
there that like kind of explains from like a kid perspective,
(10:55):
but it was educational for me. There's a list of
like medications if you go in the hospital that you
can't take.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
So it's just it's you've done so much, Jessica in
a short amount of time. When we think about four years,
it's incredible to hear about all this. We will definitely
note your podcast in our show notes when we put
this up on social. What's the day of the event?
Because I hear music, so we're getting close to the break.
What's the day of the event? And time tell us that.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
It's Sunday, September?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Is that?
Speaker 5 (11:25):
Oh my gosh, I just forgot fifteenth?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Fifteenth?
Speaker 5 (11:27):
I will double check.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I will take a little post it too. It's coming
up this month.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
It's on Sunday next week. I think that's right. Yes, Okay,
And so what time Is it from twelve to two
at Old Tangy Liberty Middle School Track?
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Yes, but it is Sunday.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
Is Sunday coming Sunday family friendly? Just well?
Speaker 1 (11:45):
And is there a place you can go your podcast
included where people can get more information to learn more
about Parkinson's.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Yes, yeah, so actually you can go to You can
go to my website five K for JK dot org.
Check us out on the Secret Life of Parkinson's. We
have times of information.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
Michael J.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Fox Foundation ap DA, which is American Pediatric Disease or
American Parkinson's.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Yeah, a p D A PDA and Parkinson's Foundation. Those
are really good ones.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Well, thanks for coming in.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
You have a great radio voice.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
She does that should be on TV.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
We'll take a picture and get it up with her.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Michael J. Fox on your podcast.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
I would love to have them on Mike all right,
and you can make that happen.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Do we have a connection well to find out, doesn't
I know of Jessica.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
Thank you, good luck with the five K. Thank you
so much. I appreciate it. This is what matters on
six ' ten w t V and
Uh, oh, we must be getting serious. Mikayla just whipt
on her glasses.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Either that or my eyesight's really getting bad at forty six.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Oh yeah, well wait till your fifty six. Because I'm
squinting for everything these days.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm going to throw on the glasses to read what
we got here.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
We're having a really important conversation and we were just
telling our guests that in March we will have been
together on the show The Matter Show for seven years
and we've never had this conversation.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
No, we haven't about Parkinson's. And I think Parkinson's impacts
more people. We just don't talk about it on a
regular basis. I think it impacts more people than we think.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
So.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Jessica Krauser is in a founder of the five K
for JK, and we're so excited to have you here.
I met you a long time ago, and I think
it did a story with you when I was Channel
four for something Else.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Yeah, it was something I think with Cheryl Sandberg's book
came out.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yes, Lean Lean and we talked about.
Speaker 5 (00:53):
Leaning in at that point and then I leaned way out. Well,
And it's.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Funny Jessica because she's like you were probably a teenage
year when Mindy was on the air in Youngstown.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Say that for WYTV.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Timing wise, it sounds like you might have been in
junior high early high school. See you kind of remember, Mindy? Yeah, yeah,
I was gonna say it's a small world too, Mindy.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well, we need to have this conversation. So what is it?
Five K for JK?
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Yeah, So it's actually it's it started out as a walk,
and it's it's it's an annual walk. Now we're on
our fourth one. My friends started this though for me,
so back in twenty twenty one. I was diagnosed with
Parkinson's in twenty nineteen, so I was thirty seven, and
you know, I have kids, I'm married, I'm working, so
(01:38):
I'm still going about doing life as is. But my
friends are always like, there's something like we want to
be able to do for you. And so a couple
of them got together and they said, let's let's do
a walk and we'll have the easiest thing to do
was going to the Michael J. Fox website, you know,
and they have everything set up.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
You can be a fundraiser.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
So we went ahead and did that and we started
raising money really quickly and a lot of money, Like
pretty quickly we were up to twenty five thousand dollars
and we're like, oh wow, this is great. And then
you know, we were talking about like different venues of
where we're going to have the walk.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
What we're going to do, and then for whatever reason,
I was like, you know.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Maybe we should turn this into a nonprofit because we
needed something to have like liability insurance of like doing
events like this and if we were going to continue
to do it. So we literally just kind of pulled
it together, like so myself, my friend Michelle Adams, carry Schaeffer,
Melissa Carlson like got together and then we said let's
just you know, let's put the paperwork down, do it,
and we'll start raising money here locally. Because going back
(02:35):
to what you said, nobody talks about Parkinson's and I
wanted to talk about it because I had I had
nobody to talk about it with.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
And so we turned the walk into a nonprofit.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
So you were thirty seven when you were first diagnosed.
Isn't that young?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I've always heard that, Yes, like sixty years old is
the average?
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Yes, so the average is like sixty plus, And but
to be honest, I think it's only like five percent
of people. That five percent of the Parkinson's population have
young or young onset, so young onset is anything under
the age of fifty. But I mean, I have a
group of women on texts, like we're all over the US,
some in Canada, there's like twenty five of us, and
(03:14):
I'm like, there's I know that there's way more than
five percent of that one million people that have Parkinson's.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
So it's just you know, peop.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Doctors don't want to, you know, say or think that
it's Parkinson's because you don't fit the mold.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So tell us a little bit about those early symptoms
and signs, because that's super interesting what she just said there,
mindy that doctors don't see it necessarily at first. So
how did you know in your specific case, what are
some of those early signs?
Speaker 4 (03:40):
So mine actually started with a tremor, So it was
a hand tremor on my right hand, on my right side.
I didn't really pay attention to like what side. I
just knew like I would shake every once in a while, like, well,
that's kind of weird. And I just started a new job.
But it was a smaller company and I remember I
was like giving a presentation kind of like at a
table like this that we're sitting at, and you know,
I've given presentation in front of hundreds of people before,
(04:01):
and like, I'm not a nervous not anymore at that point,
and I was.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
Shaking and I'm like, what is the matter with me?
Speaker 4 (04:07):
And I'm like, so I'm sitting on my hands because
I'm like, I'm not nervous, but I don't want to
look like an idiot like raisst new girl. Yeah, So
I talked to my family primary care physician and she's like,
it's probably just an essential trumor, but if it starts
to really bother you, you know, let me know and
I'll have you see a neurologist. And I was like
I was thirty five at that point.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
I was like neurologist. I'm like, dude, like I'm fine.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
So time went on and I was training for a
half marathon first and only I'll ever do with my sister,
and I I was had so much pain and cramping
in my calf and my foot was like constantly cramping
and like so I had like my husband or my
daughter like massaging, like literally I felt like a knot
was in my calf all the time. And so then
(04:53):
I went to a pediatrist cause I was like, you know,
I have bunions. I'm like, maybe something's going on there,
and he's like no, he's like that's fine, et cetera.
And then it was my obgyn. She was like, you're like,
I just went for any annual check up. She's like,
you're like really shaking. I'm like, I know, but I'm
like cold and it just comes out more.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
So you really didn't think anything of it, you know, not.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
I mean no, I wasn't putting all those pieces together.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, which I.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Think can happen in healthcare sometimes when we're trying to
look at ourselves.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Whether it's Parkinson's or anything.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, I don't think people want to believe the worst either.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
No, And the thing is, it's funny with Parkinson's, it
could be anything. I mean, people don't even know it,
but they're like, oh, I was constipated for years. Well
that's actually a symptom. Not that everybody has constipation. It's
gonna have Parkinson's. But like, you know, one of the
other ones I noticed is I was just very like
apathetic at times or just felt like no emotion, lack
(05:49):
of emotion, and that's part that's a symptom.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
So I was like, I put all those things together.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
But and so so young as we've established with it,
how did you take it all on? Like what was
your mindset about all of it? Once you got your diagnosis.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
I pretty much knew, like I diagnosed myself, like at
least a couple months before, because then I started looking
into it. Once I went to see my first neurologist
and he took me through a battery of tests. I
started looking into things and my mom noticed, like I
wasn't swinging my arm. She's like, why aren't you using
your arm when you're cooking. I'm like using my left arm.
I'm like, I don't know. And I was like, you know,
you have your mouse on the side of your computer.
(06:27):
I wasn't using that and I was using the other
my other hand. And somebody at work noticed that, and
so I looked into it, and I was like, I
have every single symptom, and so I knew it, so
going into it, I wasn't shocked. My husband was super shocked.
So he came out of there and just was bawling.
And I'm like oh, what is the matter with you?
(06:49):
And he's like, I just He's like, aren't you like upset?
I'm like, I guess I just told myself this is
what it was. And he was like, I just didn't
want to believe that anything was really.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
That wrong with you.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Michael j has become such a face for Parkinson's, you know,
he has really been a champion and a hero for it. Currently,
there is no cure for Parkinson's right, But Mikayla and
I look at you, we would never know that you
have Parkinson's because the treatments are pretty good. Correct.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
The treatments are good.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
I mean, but it's been the same same treatment for
like sixty years and they just keep redoing it different ways.
But there's like a brain surgery you can do and
stuff like that. But the thing with Parkinson's, it's like,
what's the I think they say something like ten percent
of it as visible and ninety percent is not. So like,
I actually have a podcast myself for Parkinson's patience called
The Secret Life of Parkinson's, and we've been doing it
(07:37):
for two years now, and we do it on videos
so you can see us. And so I have a
lot of Parkinson's. People comment, They're like, you don't even
look like you have Parkinson's. I'm like, you have Parkinson's.
You know, you're not supposed to say that to somebody else,
you know, who has it, because a lot of it
is like I have ten Like I'm not flexing, but
it looks like I'm flexing.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
Said, it looks like you have quite a gun. Actually
I love it. I do like it.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Yeah, but it's like you're you can be totally tense,
like all the time, Like I'm tense right now in
my leg.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
You just can't see it.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
I'm like co jittery, like in my shoulders and you know,
so there's a lot that you can't see because it's
not always shaking.
Speaker 5 (08:13):
This is not genetic either, right, it's.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Fifteen percent genetic, but mine, I don't It's not in
my family and I have a really big Youngstown family,
So I didn't get the genetic test. I just I'm
not ready to know all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Right, So does it just happen? Why do people get Parkinson's?
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Environmental for example, like the you know they always talk
about like pesticides, like the spray like from farms, So
people like a lot of people who are who are
in fart like rural areas usually get it more often.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
See, these are the conversations we need to have more of.
And I bet you so many people are listening right now,
blown away by that. Yeah, it's environmental, so past decide
to side.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
I mean, it could be like things like anything like
that mess up with your gut, you know, Like.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
So it's related to gut because your gun is so
connected to your brain inflammation.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
See, and I'm thinking of East Palising and the train
derailment up there and what may evolve with people there.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
You never know, You never know, I mean because even
I know a lot of people in the military, you know,
they always say, like with the agent orange and all
that stuff, there's a lot of the military of Parkinson's
and then a lot of you know, farmers are just
people who are close by those areas.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
So you're raising quite a bit of money over a
four year period of time. And what does that money
go towards in terms of helping with treatment, because I
know that's what you guys are in too right now.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
So in the beginning, we actually we did we did
dedicate all the money to the Michael J. Fox Foundation
because we didn't know what we were doing in the beginning,
and and we wanted to support for research. But then
as time was going on, you started realizing, especially with
the podcasts, where like there's not enough awareness, like, yes,
there's Michael J. Fox, and our generation knows him. The
generations below us don't know him as well, and a
(09:55):
lot of people see him as like he's severe with Parkinson's,
so like he's used to be like me. So it's
like we need to kind of bring this back and
bring education back as to what can be done.
Speaker 5 (10:06):
Because exercise is huge.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
So that's one of the things that we the money
goes towards is like exercise programs specifically for Parkinson's. So
there's a gym called pd Next Steps in Dublin. That's
the one I go to all for Parkinson's patients, and
she kicks our butt, like because the more bigger movements
you do, the better you are. So exercise actually slows
the progression. And that's like a note like there's like
(10:31):
four hundred studies on that.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
And then we also have.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
The money go towards these Parkinson's kits, so you can
order one online and we ship it to you or
to a loved one for free, and it just has
in their nice fight like do you know the hope
kits that like cancer patients can get. Yeah, it's kind
of like that, but it's it's tools that are useful
for somebody who has Parkinson's. So there's a book in
there that like kind of explains from like a kid perspective,
(10:55):
but it was educational for me. There's a list of
like medications if you go in the hospital that you
can't take.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
So it's just it's you've done so much, Jessica in
a short amount of time. When we think about four years,
it's incredible to hear about all this. We will definitely
note your podcast in our show notes when we put
this up on social. What's the day of the event?
Because I hear music, so we're getting close to the break.
What's the day of the event? And time tell us that.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
It's Sunday, September?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Is that?
Speaker 5 (11:25):
Oh my gosh, I just forgot fifteenth?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Fifteenth?
Speaker 5 (11:27):
I will double check.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I will take a little post it too. It's coming
up this month.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
It's on Sunday next week. I think that's right. Yes, Okay,
And so what time Is it from twelve to two
at Old Tangy Liberty Middle School Track?
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Yes, but it is Sunday.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
Is Sunday coming Sunday family friendly? Just well?
Speaker 1 (11:45):
And is there a place you can go your podcast
included where people can get more information to learn more
about Parkinson's.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Yes, yeah, so actually you can go to You can
go to my website five K for JK dot org.
Check us out on the Secret Life of Parkinson's. We
have times of information.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
Michael J.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Fox Foundation ap DA, which is American Pediatric Disease or
American Parkinson's.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Yeah, a p D A PDA and Parkinson's Foundation. Those
are really good ones.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Well, thanks for coming in.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
You have a great radio voice.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
She does that should be on TV.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
We'll take a picture and get it up with her.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Michael J. Fox on your podcast.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
I would love to have them on Mike all right,
and you can make that happen.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Do we have a connection well to find out, doesn't
I know of Jessica.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
Thank you, good luck with the five K. Thank you
so much. I appreciate it. This is what matters on
six ' ten w t V and
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