Meeting the challenges of Parkinson’s—on a bicycle

Joy Bahniuk is worried about the trip her brother, Doug, has planned for August, but says she admires his courage. Her farm, Cadence Farm, on Bolton Road, is one of the trip’s sponsors. Doug Bahniuk is making plans for “Doug’s Wild Ride,” a solo bicycle trip across Alaska to raise funds for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease (PD), with which he was diagnosed five years ago.

There are no hotels where he’s going, Joy says. “That’s one of the concerns we as a family have. He won’t have any protection, like a gun. People are concerned about the wildlife out there, especially bears.”

Doug Bahniuk poses at the top of Loveland Pass in Colorado, during his bike ride across the USA in 2008. (Courtesy photo)

She says it’s not the first time her brother has embarked on such an ambitious undertaking. In 2008 he rode his bicycle from Portland, Ore., to Boston, to prove he could meet the challenges of Parkinson’s. Now, as he says in his blog, he’s “notched it up a bit.”  He wrote in his Feb. 17, 2010, entry, “I will confront the wilderness of Alaska on a solo bike ride from Anchorage to Fairbanks—uphill all the way—camping out with the bears—proving to myself and others that Parkinson’s disease won’t stop me from meeting life’s greatest challenges.”

Doug told the Press in a recent e-mail that he chose Alaska for his next ride after a family vacation to Alaska last year. He said, “Part of that trip included a bus ride from Denali to Anchorage, and, naturally, I started thinking about doing that route as a bike trip. It captured my imagination: wild, rugged; a true challenge. Keep in mind that I’ve completed a transcontinental ride, so this seemed a little different.”

Doug, 55, is used to taking on challenges. A certified clinical engineer, he founded the biomedical engineering service organization Adelsys, Inc. in 1983. He holds a B.S in physics from Bowling Green State University and an M.S. in clinical engineering from Case Western Reserve University. According to the Adelsys website, Bahniuk is “licensed as an electrical engineer by the state of Ohio, and certified as a clinical engineer by the International Certification Commission for Clinical Engineering and Biomedical Technology.”

As if those accomplishments weren’t enough, Doug has authored articles about laboratory equipment and assorted topics in medical technology, including one about PD, published in the March, 2010 issue of Medical Design News. He is also a graduate of the Clinical Research Learning Institute, a three-day program that, according to its website, helps prepare “people living with PD to serve as advocates in the clinical research process.”

But Doug’s biggest challenge is living with the disease, and according to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, the challenges are many. Symptoms can include muscle stiffness, impaired balance and coordination, reduced functionality in gross and fine motor movements, speech problems, loss of facial expression, and difficulty swallowing, to name a few. Nonmotor symptoms can include fatigue, memory difficulties, and depression. It is those symptoms that Bahniuk seems to find most troubling.

In an April entry in his blog, he shares his fears that he is losing his intellectual capacity. He says, “I’m becoming stupid. It seems to me that I get confused easily. I’m not sure why, but I can’t do math in my head anymore. I find it increasingly difficult to verbally express complex thoughts. …It’s increasingly difficult to just speak.”

In a May blog entry, he acknowledges his self-doubt and admits his physical weaknesses, despite his workouts on his bike. Besides dealing with the challenges of PD, he is plagued by severe arthritis in his neck and shoulder and moderate arthritis in both hips.

His sister says he sometimes loses control of his hands, and she worries about him doing things like setting up his tent during his Alaska trip. But, she adds, “He’s not one to say ‘I surrender.’”

In addition to being one of the sponsors of her brother’s wild ride, Joy is the organizer of the post-ride celebration and fundraising dinner, planned for Aug. 29 at the Chagrin Valley Hunt Club in Gates Mills, Ohio.

“I want to do everything I can to help him,” she says. “I will donate my time, do what I can do. I want it to be a success.”

Doug wants it to be a success as well, and has logged many miles of practice time on his bicycle in addition to practicing things like setting up his tent.

In his blog entry for June 10, he says it took him 45 minutes to set the tent up in the basement. Discouraged, he told his wife, “It’s gonna be a tough ride,” and immediately regretted it. His blog goes on, “I’ve tested her a lot: skydiving, riding across the U.S., and now this upcoming ride. I saw the worry flash across her face. I didn’t know what to say. Here I am (sometimes) hardly able to walk across the room, and I’m planning to ride 400 miles across Alaska. I wanted to reassure her, but at that moment I didn’t have a lot of confidence myself.”

To assuage the fears of family and friends, he says he’ll give the Alaska State Police his itinerary and check in with them if he can. He’s not taking a satellite phone and he says his cell will work only sporadically.

Yes, it sounds like it’s gonna be a tough ride.