Bischoff creates PD talks to discuss his fight with Parkinson's disease

Article Launched: 05/03/2007 11:00:00 PM PDT
By L. Alexis Young
Staff Writer

He's losing control of his fine motor skills, his hands tremor, and he's lost the ability to swing his right arm but Todd Bischoff hasn't lost hope.

Last year the Ontario resident was diagnosed with Young-Onset Parkinson's disease, a progressive disorder of the nervous system.
There is no known cause or cure for the disease and though the former athlete knows his fate, he is refusing to let it kill his good spirits. Last fall, Bischoff founded PD Talks, an outlet for him to share and inspire others to overcome adversity in their lives.

"In the Parkinson's community, people spend a lot of time talking about our medicine, the side effects of our medicine, when we take our medicine, but we don't spend a lot of time talking about inspiration and hope so that's what PD Talks is for," said Bischoff, who was diagnosed at age 46.

"There is hope and you can still do things in life. I really try to focus on moving forward.

"For the most part, I'd been pretty healthy so the diagnosis was a surprise but it explained a lot of things," said Bischoff, who traded in his ice hockey stick for a microphone to become a motivational speaker.

"I had the three main motor symptoms. One is rigidity and I was having a lot of that primarily on my right side. I stopped playing hockey and things didn't get better. The other was slowness in movement and I had a resting tremor which was pretty minor. I was also having a lot of problems with my fine motor skills. Trying to get potato chips out of a bag was a huge ordeal."


Bischoff said a back injury that required two surgeries and more than five years of physical therapy that included learning to stand, walk, and dress himself, prepared him for the grim diagnosis that coincidently came during National Parkinson Awareness Month.

The 16 pills that Bischoff takes every day won't cure him, but they mask his symptoms. There is no typical day but Bischoff wakes up each morning ready to deal with his reality.

"Some say that adversity builds character but I believe adversity reveals character," said Bischoff, who retired from his career as a child life specialist to operate PD Talks.

"I've learned a lot about myself. When somebody is diagnosed with an incurable disease, people either ignore it and try to live out their life the best they can and then there's people who get involved. My thing is PD Talks, the education, the advocacy."

"It's a challenge going to speak because I'm on such a strict time frame with my medication," Bischoff said. "The good news is it doesn't kill you, the bad news is it doesn't kill you. It just gets progressively worse. The biggest challenge is not knowing how things are going to be from day to day, it's like being stuck on a roller coaster.

"The other part is you do know where you're going with Parkinson's. It's like being in a car and seeing a cliff up ahead. You know you're going to go off the end. That's the scary part."

A pharmaceutical company held an online contest seeking essays from people describing life with Parkinson's disease. Bischoff won the contest and a trip to New York to participate in the Parkinson's Unity Walk on April 28.

Maryum "May May" Ali, a friend of Bischoff's and daughter of bower Muhammad Ali, said he did not let the disorder change who he was, and he took it upon himself to learn as much as he could about Parkinson's disease.

"He's enthusiastic, warm, very funny, motivated, he's pretty much the same," Ali said about her friend of seven years. "All of those qualities stayed the same. Todd is so connected. Some people take it inward and they stay in the house. Todd may have a down day but he keeps moving forward. He's a helping person, that's just his personality. He gets involved with a lot of different organizations and charity events.

"One time he was working on a charity event and he called an asked me if I could get one of my dad's gloves signed to help raise money. He's just a helping person."
For more information about PD Talks, visit www.pdtalks.com.


paula

Thanks for posting this Paula. It was cool that they even decided to run something. I am grateful for the coverage as I try to spread the word about PD to as many people as possible. Pass it around...

It is so discourging after all these years as Canadian to see how many of his resources are American.

This bloody country better wake up and get going. There are many things happening in research here in Canada but you will be long gone before you find them on the net.

I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand this comment or how it relates to this particular article. Can you please clarify for me? Thanks!

Oh just bemoaning the fact that you are not Canadian and up here helping us. Our groups are so useless. sorry

where Thelma is coming from. And I understand her sense of discouragement watching our government put all things medical at the bottom of a list so ineffectual that it's a waste of time. And there is nothing like the structure in the US or the media that put that contest together...

Although Todd is a Canadian resident, the contest was American, the Unity walk is American and the attention he got was American! I think Thelma is asking WHY???? This sort of thing should be happening in Canada too, but it isn't! and it likely never will.

The Political/Medical structure is very different up here than it is in the U.S. There are more of you in the States, making a lot more noise, - what isn't obvious to the outside observer is you have organizations up to your ying-yangs but the downside is, they are tripping all over each other and not well co-ordinated interactivley. At least that was my impression from what I saw in Washington last year. And the Amy Comstocks (PAN) and her counter parts of the other half dozen National organizations like the APDF and the NPDA (the initials might not be right because the names are all so Generic) appear to be covering the same territory which creates redundancy...So Thelma -it's not as co-ordinated or effective as you might think. However the Americans are much more pro-active as individuals and take the initiative to create websites and are much more vocal. Canada has a tidy little system which is akin to having a cute little house with a perfectly groomed garden and white washed fence where alll the folks are friendly, but you have the feeling your in a scene from the Stepford wives, -a bird of another ineffective color. Even MJF who is our hometown boy has gone to the States to set up shop, because thats were you can do some pushing and shoving and make some noise. The paradox is: he creates yet another fragment in an already fragmented system. He even gave up his Canadian citizenship,not because he wanted to, but because he had to be American to hunt with a big gun! Us Canadians are still using pop guns up here. We don't have the population or the motivation to become real advocates of civil disobedience or unrest. The truth is neither system as it currently exists is as powerful or has as much clout as it could/should have if they could just put all those damaged brains in one huge coordinated power pile and become a driving force in the political arena. That's when someone will pay attention and things will change. I'm glad to hear that a Canadian won the contest. How many Canadians even bothered to enter I wonder? Good for you Todd!
(disclaimer: ignore me if I missed the point completely)

Um, Rosebud and Thelma? I love your posts and your way of thinking but....I'm an American and live in Southern California.

The "Ontario" thing throws people off...

Todd,

You mean that you are the Todd this article is about? That is very cool.
I am in awe.....

Thanks for all that you do.

I'd love to read your essay.

Mary

Todd

Just visited "pdtalks.com" Now I am really in awe.............

Great testimony......

You are an inspiration.

Thanks,

Mary

In southern California? Can this be true???