I'm Not Dead Yet!

A wildfire can take your house in minutes. What it can’t take—if you fight for it—is your ability to choose what comes next. We open up about losing our Altadena home in the Eaton Fire, the chaotic evacuation with two poodles and two cats, and the gritty, unglamorous path to rebuilding when Parkinson’s is part of daily life. From “well begun is half done” to letting go of what can burn, this conversation moves from shock to action, and from paperwork to purpose.

We break down the steps that turned grief into motion: hiring an architect and contractor within weeks, surviving a nine-month “fast-tracked” permit maze, and navigating two rounds of temporary housing that taught us what accessibility really means. The details matter—no-step entries, wide halls, curbless showers, reachable storage, induction cooking, and lighting that respects tired eyes. These choices aren’t luxuries; they’re the difference between conserving strength for what you love and spending it on doorways and drawers.

There’s a human core to all of it: what you grab when time collapses, how you forgive yourself for what stays behind, and why presence beats perfection. Along the way, there’s real joy—road trips to reconnect, an Iceland photo that placed in a juried show, and the launch of Faces of Parkinson’s, Volume Two. Community shows up too, from neighbors repurposing historic homes to friends who keep asking the right questions.

If you’re staring down big change, here’s a roadmap built from fire and faith: start sooner than you feel ready, design for the body you have and the future you can’t predict, and keep space for art, pets, and laughter. If this story helps you breathe easier or plan smarter, tap follow, share it with someone who needs resilience today, and leave a review so others can find the show.

• Co-hosts: Judy Yaras & Travis Robinson
• www.INDYpodcast.net
  
  
  

A slipper, a sudden freeze, and a screen that reads “DBS unit failed.” That’s how our morning began—and how years of carefully managed Parkinson’s symptoms vanished in seconds. What follows is an unvarnished look at life when a single device holds up half your world, and what it takes to stand it back up when that device goes dark during the holidays.

We walk through the cascade: dystonia locking all four limbs, a voice reshaped by stimulation, and the way DBS can both give back a life and complicate it. Travis shares how he balanced programming across device manufacturers and a movement disorder team, then layered in a subcutaneous levodopa pump to reclaim smoother movement without sacrificing communication. The tradeoffs are real, but so is the agency—adjust, test, iterate, and prioritize the parts of life that matter most.

Then we get tactical. With surgeons on vacation and insurance ticking over, we mobilized a network: neurology, neurosurgery, device reps, and a primary care fast-pass to complete pre-op in 24 hours. We pulled caregiving into a 40-hour schedule, leaned on friends for the gaps, and kept day jobs and a home rebuild moving after the Eaton Fire. The playbook is simple and hard: be known by your providers, deliver what they need quickly, and never hesitate to ask for help.

Finally, we zoom out to resilience planning. What happens when the internet drops and your phone depends on Wi-Fi? When you rely on a charger you can’t reach? When supply chains squeeze medication access? We share practical steps to eliminate single points of failure—phone trees, battery backups, accessible home design, and written plans—so a flare-up becomes a solvable problem, not a crisis.

If this story resonates, subscribe, share it with someone navigating Parkinson’s or DBS, and leave a review with one contingency you plan to add this week. Your ideas might be the lifeline someone else needs tomorrow.

• Co-hosts: Judy Yaras & Travis Robinson
• www.INDYpodcast.net
  
  
  

Stress isn’t just a feeling—it’s your body mobilizing resources to meet a moment. We sit down with a neuropsychologist to map what stress actually is, how it differs from anxiety, and why chronic activation can make the “on” switch hypersensitive and the “off” switch hard to hit. From there, we wade into depression and apathy in Parkinson’s—two experiences that look similar from the outside but feel very different inside—and why apathy in particular is tough on families and tricky to treat.

We compare roles on the care team—psychiatry for medications, psychology and neuropsychology for therapy and assessment—and talk about why a blended plan often works best. For those navigating young-onset Parkinson’s, we get real about career pressure, parenting, and socially demanding hobbies, and we offer scripts for advocating needs without withdrawing. Hiding symptoms hands the disease more than it took; a single text that asks “What would you like to do with us?” can change the week.

You’ll leave with practical tools you can use today: exposure therapy to unlearn avoidance, mindfulness that’s grounded in sensory cues, and progressive muscle relaxation to pull the only two voluntary levers you have in the stress response—breath and muscles. We round it out with the habits that build resilience—sleep, movement within your limits, honest conversations, and small daily acts of joy—and with the bigger question that shapes recovery: who am I now, and who can I become with this diagnosis?

If this conversation landed with you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a rating or review so more people can find it. Your voice helps this community grow.

• Co-hosts: Judy Yaras & Travis Robinson
• www.INDYpodcast.net