Speaker 1: This is a story I've never told anyone about Ali,
Speaker 1: and I guess it's about me too, But I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you. Back in nineteen seventy five, sparring with Ali,
Speaker 1: just moments after Ali opened me, he escorts me down
Speaker 1: from the ring gingerly. I'm freshly electrocuted from that one
Speaker 1: single left jab, just one from this great man, Muhammad Ali.
Speaker 1: I feel like I might hit the floor. He sits
Speaker 1: me down and he clambers back up into the ring
Speaker 1: and boxes this beautiful round with Eddie Bossman Jones, his
Speaker 1: longtime sparring partner. It was unreal. I mean, just this
Speaker 1: blistering series of punches, just tracers is all you could see.
Speaker 1: At the end of the round, he steps over to
Speaker 1: the corner Drew Bundini Brown and Joe Dundee removed his
Speaker 1: gloves and he steps back to the center of the ring,
Speaker 1: puts both hands up in front of him, drops the
Speaker 1: right one to his side, and says.
Speaker 2: The man who has no imagination has no wings.
Speaker 1: He cannot fly. When he said that, he slowly opened
Speaker 1: his hand, and a bird I now know to have
Speaker 1: been a Carolina wren flew from his hand and fluttered
Speaker 1: up to the ceiling in his training camp, in that
Speaker 1: little cabin in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania. It's more Ali magic.
Speaker 3: It had this sort of powerful presence and the fact
Speaker 3: that he was willing to be public about his disease
Speaker 3: really gave patience courage.
Speaker 1: That's doctor Howie Schiel, director of the Muhammad Ali Parkinson
Speaker 1: Center in Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 3: If he can do it, if he can be brave
Speaker 3: enough to get out there and be a person with
Speaker 3: Parkinson's disease in the public eye, they said, Hey, maybe
Speaker 3: I can do this too.
Speaker 2: It's totally awesome to have someone like that, with his
Speaker 2: stature and his condition be out there and he had
Speaker 2: those tremors going on. People felt sorry for him, but
Speaker 2: that was just the tip of the iceberg. He was
Speaker 2: there doing it for others, and that's how I got
Speaker 2: hooked in.
Speaker 1: And this is Frank Borges, a patient at the center
Speaker 1: who is inspired by Mohammad's fight against the disease.
Speaker 2: I would say it's magic, but it's just actually really is.
Speaker 2: It just makes me feel really good.
Speaker 1: Mohammed Ali, oh, how he loves to make us believe
Speaker 1: in magic. Some of us have even been inspired by
Speaker 1: Ali to believe in our own sorcery, our incantatory ability
Speaker 1: to push on despite the odds, to invoke and pursue
Speaker 1: our own magical talents. Now late in Ali's life, with
Speaker 1: the world to stop believing in him, the old Wizard
Speaker 1: enchants me and helps me believe What's again? Episode five
Speaker 1: The Eyes Lie Kentucky Derby Day in Louisville nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: Rockman invites me to a gym where Mohammed is meeting
Speaker 1: with people and receiving some kind of half ass award.
Speaker 1: I mean, it really was a half ass award from
Speaker 1: some local Louisvillion who wanted to open a boxing hall
Speaker 1: of fame. So I dress in all white that day,
Speaker 1: like Muhammad has every time I seen him, and drive
Speaker 1: down to the gym. When I get there, Cassius Clay
Speaker 1: Senior is getting out of a limo. I step inside
Speaker 1: and Mohammed's already there. There's these two ancient looking boxing
Speaker 1: trainers I've never seen before, local Louisville trainers, and Mohammad's
Speaker 1: sitting in between them, and they're showing old black and
Speaker 1: white Cepia colored eight millimeter footage of young Cassius Clay
Speaker 1: working on a speedbag and a heavy bag. Mohammad's sitting there,
Speaker 1: and then he stands up from his seat and says,
Speaker 1: this is boring. He starts goofing around with everybody in
Speaker 1: the room, throwing punches at people. He looks at me,
Speaker 1: points he says, didn't know you'd be here, and then
Speaker 1: he starts throwing punches at me. I'm just all lit up.
Speaker 1: I'm happy as can be. And we trade shots for
Speaker 1: a minute. I'm such a little pointed nose bespectacled white guy,
Speaker 1: kind of Some of the people around the gym go
Speaker 1: ooh ah, you got a live one, and we break
Speaker 1: it off. This college looking kid steps up, blonde haired,
Speaker 1: wearing a polo shirt and starts throwing shots volley and
Speaker 1: he's heavyweight, he's Muhammed's size. They're throwing things at some
Speaker 1: distance from each other, and then Mohammad points to the ring.
Speaker 1: I know what he wants. He's intending to box this kid.
Speaker 1: Really box this kid. Yeah. Mohammad's wearing a business suit,
Speaker 1: red tie, white, starts to button up shirt and he
Speaker 1: asks for a pair of gloves. Somebody straps gloves on
Speaker 1: his arm. He climbs between the ropes, gets this kid
Speaker 1: to get in between the ropes with him and says.
Speaker 4: Five rounds.
Speaker 1: I have a video camera with me. I step into
Speaker 1: Muhammed his corner and starts shooting. At the beginning of
Speaker 1: the first round, you know, I don't know how long
Speaker 1: it had been since Muhammed had bucks. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it had been six weeks or six years. Awi
Speaker 1: is looking really stiff, and this kid's pretty good. He
Speaker 1: dances around Ali. Ali looks at the kid's feet and
Speaker 1: up in his face and points. You know, and what
Speaker 1: Muhammad means by that is you learn that from me.
Speaker 1: But the kid didn't understand that. This kid's being aggressive.
Speaker 1: He really comes at Mohammed. Mohammed's covering up and he
Speaker 1: looks bad. I'm worried for him. I feel this cold
Speaker 1: cockroach of sweat going down my spine and then Dan
Speaker 1: the end of that first round, and at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the second round, this kid gets very aggressive and
Speaker 1: starts sticking Muhammad with a jab over and over again.
Speaker 1: Muhamma's covering up and he motions the kid and says,
Speaker 1: come on, come on, I know what he's doing. I'm
Speaker 1: just wondering can he really pull this off?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: When the kid throws a jab, Mohammed comes across and
Speaker 1: sticks him with a counter jab. Suddenly Ali is Ali.
Speaker 1: The kid's head goes through a ninety degree turn, his
Speaker 1: legs shake and rotmand Ringside says, this kid is suddenly,
Speaker 1: maybe for the first time in his life, aware of
Speaker 1: his own mortality. It's quite a moment. He gets on
Speaker 1: his skates and gets out of there. Mohammad plays it
Speaker 1: nice and kind. He backs off and then puts somebody
Speaker 1: else in the ring of far less gift did box her.
Speaker 1: Is remarkable to see that this man who could barely
Speaker 1: get through the ring ropes when he had to, he
Speaker 1: pulls himself up. He's that hugely prideful, greatly courageous man
Speaker 1: and thumps this kid. Really gives him a lesson. I realized,
Speaker 1: once again, with Muhammed as my hero, my inspiration, I
Speaker 1: need to pull myself up too. I'm going to do
Speaker 1: the best work I have in me. I ain't no fighter,
Speaker 1: but I am a writer and I can write great stuff,
Speaker 1: and I won't accept anything less no matter what any
Speaker 1: detractor might say. In the future, I'm going to do
Speaker 1: something it hasn't been done before. I'm going to do
Speaker 1: it about Muhammad Ali I'm going to show the world
Speaker 1: who he really is, what he is in the pit
Speaker 1: of his belly and in his chest and in his heart,
Speaker 1: and what he cares about. It's been very helpful for
Speaker 1: me today to see Mohammed in these ways as I'm
Speaker 1: sitting down to write daily the story which i think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call my Dinner with Ali, and it's just
Speaker 1: enormously inspiring that I've got to dig deep. I've got
Speaker 1: to prove myself. I've got to do this thing that
Speaker 1: I've never done before. I've got to do it for him,
Speaker 1: and I've got to do it for myself. Do I
Speaker 1: have that greatness in me? Do I have this story
Speaker 1: in me? What I'm doing at home every day is
Speaker 1: I'm stepping into my little study managing video stores. I've
Speaker 1: got my mom's old typewriter in there. I'm locking the door.
Speaker 1: I've got my speed bag in there, I've got my
Speaker 1: heavy bag in there. I'll step over to the bag
Speaker 1: several times during the day and I sit and I
Speaker 1: plug the deepest parts of myself to get to the
Speaker 1: truest story about that first night missus Clay's with Mohammed,
Speaker 1: And it's in me a remarkable thing about it is
Speaker 1: though I didn't take one note because I wasn't thinking
Speaker 1: about writing it. I was in the dream, and the
Speaker 1: dream lives for me in each moment, and I recall
Speaker 1: every twitch that Muhammed did. I recall all his movements,
Speaker 1: all the movements of Missus Clay, of Rockmand, of everyone
Speaker 1: in the room, and everything they said, which I don't
Speaker 1: think I've ever had that happen before in my life.
Speaker 1: What does that mean, I don't know, but it feels
Speaker 1: almost divine. One of the cool things about hanging out
Speaker 1: with Mohammed with a group of people is that he
Speaker 1: would sit on the edge of conversations. He'd listen and
Speaker 1: listen and listen, and when he had something to say,
Speaker 1: it was like him sticking you with that snake click
Speaker 1: of a jab. He'd just pop it out there and
Speaker 1: it'd be this one liner that would stop you dead
Speaker 1: with its insight and its poignancy. Craig and I had
Speaker 1: a different way of seeing Mohammed than the old school
Speaker 1: guys who come up with him in the sixties and seventies.
Speaker 1: That previous generation of guys, most of them saw Muhammed
Speaker 1: is being pitiful. That was about them partly about their
Speaker 1: own houseyon days. This was their glory time as well,
Speaker 1: and they don't want to see it diminished through Muhammed.
Speaker 1: The only time I ever heard him frustrated ever, out
Speaker 1: of hundreds of hours with him, the one thing he said,
Speaker 1: and it was after a bad moment where people were
Speaker 1: around him looking at him in tough ways. We were
Speaker 1: sitting in a car. I'm sitting beside him in the
Speaker 1: back seat, and he said, just imagine what I could
Speaker 1: be doing if I didn't have this shit. The one
Speaker 1: and only time I ever heard him frustrated, But he
Speaker 1: also said this to me, people care about me now
Speaker 1: because I ain't superman no more. I don't think Mohammad
Speaker 1: saw himself exactly as being like them. He knew he
Speaker 1: was someone exceptional. But they see me as being like them,
Speaker 1: and that allows them to care about me and care
Speaker 1: about me now. That hit me pretty deeply too, that
Speaker 1: level of insight. If he's still been the old noisy Alli,
Speaker 1: would we have loved him. His silence allowed us to
Speaker 1: see him in ways that we projected on him, in
Speaker 1: that he sort of became this whispering seer, this muse
Speaker 1: that we could put our own stuff on. I've had
Speaker 1: Parkinson's patients say directly to me that they were inspired
Speaker 1: by Mohammed the fact that he went out there and
Speaker 1: showed himself to the entire world standing on that platform
Speaker 1: in Atlanta the ninety six Olympics. That was a moment
Speaker 1: that allowed a lot of Parkinson's patients to say, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I need to get on with this too. Jampi, one
Speaker 1: of the great preggers in the score Craig tell us
Speaker 1: more about that incredible moment when he.
Speaker 4: Held that torch out like that and everybody took their picture.
Speaker 4: He was beaming once it all worked. When it was
Speaker 4: over and they went up to the suite in the hotel,
Speaker 4: he had a torch that he lit the flame with
Speaker 4: and he was in the chair with it. He wouldn't
Speaker 4: let it go. He was so proud of the moment.
Speaker 4: When people came up to talk to him, he just
Speaker 4: kept it in the chair and he was able to
Speaker 4: take it home. Obviously.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's in the Ali Center now, it's in a
Speaker 1: display case.
Speaker 4: It had a lot of symbolic power to it. But
Speaker 4: the athlete in Ali wouldn't allow himself to fail, and
Speaker 4: I'm sure he was.
Speaker 1: Nervous asked, the trimmors. Those are the trimmors. You know
Speaker 1: this as well as I do. That when he was
Speaker 1: nervous about something, typically when he had to appear in public,
Speaker 1: that's when the trimmors would come forth. The trimmors were
Speaker 1: much milder when he wasn't nervous.
Speaker 4: In essence, he had to get up for the moment
Speaker 4: to make sure it went well. And I'm sure he
Speaker 4: sucked up all the courage he could to make sure
Speaker 4: that he looked dignified and he could light this thing
Speaker 4: and not only light that torch, light up that crowd,
Speaker 4: because when it worked and he held that thing up,
Speaker 4: the place went crazy.
Speaker 1: They kept that such a secret. I'd been calling the farm.
Speaker 1: I've been calling the office, been calling the home phone
Speaker 1: for weeks, and it kept going to voicemail, which was
Speaker 1: not typical.
Speaker 2: The town.
Speaker 1: I said, Okay, there's something going on here. Mohammed is
Speaker 1: doing something, and I wondered, is it the Olympics? Is
Speaker 1: it the Olympics? Is it the Olympics. The one time
Speaker 1: I got through to him, he said, I'm training and
Speaker 1: he didn't say what he's training for, and I didn't
Speaker 1: push it, but he'd been training for probably sixty to
Speaker 1: ninety days. He got his weight down. He's out there
Speaker 1: doing the bag work. He's probably walking up and down
Speaker 1: that long, long driveway several times a day. He worked
Speaker 1: hard to get to that. Now, how it affected other
Speaker 1: people though, The world came to understand him in those
Speaker 1: moments in the way that you and I did, in
Speaker 1: the way we'd known him to be for years. And
Speaker 1: there were a lot of people who I mean millions
Speaker 1: of people didn't even know that he had Parkinson's and
Speaker 1: they said, oh, okay, there he is, but he's okay,
Speaker 1: he's okay, he's still Ali. It struck people very very deeply,
Speaker 1: and it struck Muhammed very deeply. He considered it a
Speaker 1: transcendent moment.
Speaker 4: It's an affirmation of sorts, Isn't it.
Speaker 1: Good word choice? It is absolutely an affirmation. You start
Speaker 1: looking at what are the most powerful moments in Olympics history,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. It ain't necessarily what happened on
Speaker 1: a field or in a ring, or in a swimming
Speaker 1: or throwing sticks. Number one, with the exception of Jesse
Speaker 1: Owen's pissing off Hitler, is Muhammad Ali standing up and
Speaker 1: lighting that porch in ninety six in Atlanta.
Speaker 4: What he did is conquered the physical to reach millions.
Speaker 1: I was in Morocco for Sport magazine when Mohammad was
Speaker 1: at that Olympics. I was covering a pro am golf
Speaker 1: tournament that the King of Morocco put on, and I
Speaker 1: just found it the silliest thing in the world. I
Speaker 1: had no interest in it whatsoever. But the hotel I
Speaker 1: was staying in I come down to get breakfast. I
Speaker 1: step out of the elevator and there's this huddle of
Speaker 1: people around the front desk and I see at the
Speaker 1: center of this little huddle this tiny television and they're
Speaker 1: all got this softness that you would seeing around Mohammed
Speaker 1: if he was actually there. This circle of people around
Speaker 1: just taking this TVs seriously, and I get up close
Speaker 1: to it. There's Mohammed lighting the torch and they play
Speaker 1: it over and over and over again. The skip breakfast.
Speaker 1: I'm in Marrakesh and I go out onto the empty
Speaker 1: streets and it's usually full of people, and in this case,
Speaker 1: you see people clustered in front of televisions in these
Speaker 1: shop windows and they're crying. They're all just absolutely riveted.
Speaker 1: Here he is the most famous Muslim in the world,
Speaker 1: standing lighting that torch emblematically for us all.
Speaker 4: Our next guest is being treated for Parkinson's disease at
Speaker 4: the Muhammad A. Leave Parkinson Center. Frank Borgese is seventy
Speaker 4: four years old and lives in Anthem, Arizona. He grew
Speaker 4: up in Chicago and yes, he was a fan of
Speaker 4: Mohammad's during his boxing career. Frank was the executive director
Speaker 4: of the Northern Arizona Chapter of the American Red Cross.
Speaker 4: Thanks for taking the time to be with us today.
Speaker 2: Great to be here.
Speaker 4: How are you able to get into the Ali Center?
Speaker 2: Good question. I was with another neurologist in a different
Speaker 2: hospital system. My wife was in the medical field all
Speaker 2: her life, so she was always saying, do you really
Speaker 2: like this guy? Is he really pinpointing things? And she
Speaker 2: actually had to talk him into prescribing some levadopa because
Speaker 2: she thought I had Parkinson's and he was saying, to know,
Speaker 2: it's he has parkinson isn't, which isn't the same thing.
Speaker 2: He gave in. He said, try his medication for three
Speaker 2: months and we'll see. And it's like the first time
Speaker 2: I took it, just like, holy cow, what a difference.
Speaker 2: She always wanted to get me into Muhammad Ali of
Speaker 2: Parkinson Center. We're We're glad we did because the doctor's there,
Speaker 2: the one we have doctor Nicki Nehman and my physical
Speaker 2: therapists there. They work with you one on one and
Speaker 2: they tell me that. And I noticed this that everyone's
Speaker 2: with Parkinson's disease. It's it's different for everybody. Some are
Speaker 2: same symptoms, but there's everyone's got something a little different,
Speaker 2: so you can't treat it boilerplate, which other institutions did.
Speaker 2: I felt some other institutions were more wrapped up in
Speaker 2: the research, but not so much about personalization with you
Speaker 2: to help you out. It's kind of like, yeah, i'll
Speaker 2: see I'll see it in six months. And then my
Speaker 2: wife said, well, I think Frank needs physical therapy, and
Speaker 2: she pushed for that. She and my rock. By the way,
Speaker 2: that was the way we could get into Muhammaadli Parkinson
Speaker 2: Center because you have to have a diagnosis or you
Speaker 2: have to have a referral to get in there. It's
Speaker 2: a very busy place. So once I got there, things
Speaker 2: turned around dramatically. And seeing I say, Imam Ali's picture everywhere,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like he's here. I thought of him
Speaker 2: when I went to the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center, and
Speaker 2: I just felt he was there looking down at me.
Speaker 2: I felt stronger, like if he could beat this, or
Speaker 2: at least live longer with it, then I can do
Speaker 2: the same. He inspired me, and with Parkinson. You'd rather
Speaker 2: sit in your easy chair and in the newspaper, watch TV,
Speaker 2: have breakfast, lunch, dinner. But I picked up or my
Speaker 2: wife actually bought it for me because I was saying
Speaker 2: to her, I'd like to have a poster of Muhammad Ali.
Speaker 2: It's right next to my bed. Or actually I sleep
Speaker 2: in an easy chair now illviated for you. I hit
Speaker 2: it every minute of training, but said suffer now and
Speaker 2: live the rest of your life like a champion. Ever
Speaker 2: read there every morning to get me up. It's my job.
Speaker 2: I got to get up and do this. The doctor
Speaker 2: that I see is the doctor Nicki Nineman, who is
Speaker 2: a part of the whole program that Doctor Schillen overseas,
Speaker 2: including many wonderful programs that they offer to people afflicted
Speaker 2: with Parkinsons disease. I go to a power Moves class
Speaker 2: virtual I can call in two times a week. There's
Speaker 2: a Ti Chi class that attend virtually there that they have,
Speaker 2: which is Spectas, and they have some other programs that
Speaker 2: you can get involved in playing golf. So if you
Speaker 2: can't walk or you can't stand up, because with me,
Speaker 2: if I swing the club, my emotion would keep going
Speaker 2: and I'll be flat on my faith. They have special
Speaker 2: equipment that they either ground you to the ground and
Speaker 2: you're able to swing the club. So I'm thinking about
Speaker 2: doing that too. So there's so much that they offer.
Speaker 2: It's fantastic. And I asked to do a lot with
Speaker 2: the director Doctor Show.
Speaker 1: I'm sure tai chi and boxing are long movements, and
Speaker 1: of course it's those little close end type movements that
Speaker 1: are so difficult with Parkinson's. It seems to me that
Speaker 1: those are great.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite classes at Muhammad Ali's Parkinson
Speaker 2: Center because like you said, it's big movements and slow movements,
Speaker 2: and it's a program that's been around for thousands of years.
Speaker 2: Three thousands of this one program that they teach me.
Speaker 2: It really helps. I have a class here at the
Speaker 2: Dentum Country Club too, that's a water aerobics, so I
Speaker 2: can get loosened up there. I can do a lot
Speaker 2: of those moves pretty well under water, you know, just
Speaker 2: put the connection together with your brain that you can
Speaker 2: make those big gestures and movements. And they do incorporate
Speaker 2: the boxing part of it too, with the instruction for
Speaker 2: their power Moves classes where you're cross punching and un
Speaker 2: punching uppercuts, and it definitely helps.
Speaker 1: It gives you a chance to be a kid again
Speaker 1: in a certain way too. So yeah, that's a fine thing, Frank.
Speaker 4: Appreciate your time, very illuminating and thank you.
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot.
Speaker 1: Take care of yourself in every moment. Thank you, Thank you, Frank.
Speaker 4: The Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center is the most comprehensive center
Speaker 4: of its kind, located in Phoenix, Arizona, as part of
Speaker 4: the Barrow Neurological Institute. The center was founded in March
Speaker 4: of nineteen ninety seven when doctor Abraham Lieberman encouraged Muhammad
Speaker 4: to become the face of the fight against the disease.
Speaker 4: The director of the center is doctor Holly Schill. She
Speaker 4: is a neurologist in chair in Parkinson's Disease in Movement disorders,
Speaker 4: as well as a professor in the Department of Neurology
Speaker 4: at the Barrow Neurological Institute, Doctor shild I want to
Speaker 4: thank you for taking the time to join us.
Speaker 3: Thank you, it's my pleasure to be here.
Speaker 4: Tell us about the origins of Mohammad's involvement in the
Speaker 4: founding of the center.
Speaker 3: It started when there was this fundraiser called Celebrity Fight
Speaker 3: Night back in the mid nineties. It was this idea
Speaker 3: of getting stars to get together and help to raise
Speaker 3: money for charities. Jimmy Walker had the brilliant idea to say, hey,
Speaker 3: maybe we should invite Muhammad Ali boy, it would really
Speaker 3: be a good person to start to be the face
Speaker 3: of Parkinson's disease. He approached them in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 3: he agreed, and the rest is history.
Speaker 4: You were a resident at that time.
Speaker 3: So I was training here at Baroonurological back in the
Speaker 3: late nineties. I remember those very early days, you know,
Speaker 3: the days of the ribbon cutting. At the time, we
Speaker 3: were like six clinic rooms and a little space at
Speaker 3: the end of the hall where with some educational material
Speaker 3: about Parkinson's disease, but this very strong commitment to really
Speaker 3: support patients and families, making sure that nobody goes without care,
Speaker 3: making sure that patients are educated, making sure that they
Speaker 3: just had the support that they need to be successful. Today,
Speaker 3: we have an entire floor, thirty clinic rooms. We have
Speaker 3: rehab space, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy. We have
Speaker 3: a outreach center which has a gym and places where
Speaker 3: patients can meet with social workers. We have an entire
Speaker 3: research division that is also on this floor. Come here
Speaker 3: and we can provide everything that you need.
Speaker 4: What was the impact of having someone with a name
Speaker 4: as prominent as Muhammad Ali attach himself to your work
Speaker 4: and to the center.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just extremely important to the patient. Had this sort
Speaker 3: of powerful presence, and the fact that he was willing
Speaker 3: to be public about his disease gave patients courage. If
Speaker 3: he can do it, if he can be brave enough
Speaker 3: to get out there and be a person with Parkinson's
Speaker 3: disease in the public eye, they said, hey, maybe I
Speaker 3: can do this too.
Speaker 4: Another celebrity has been part of your work as well,
Speaker 4: and that's Michael J. Fox, who has his own separate
Speaker 4: foundation from the Alis.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the Fox Foundation started right about the time the
Speaker 3: Alis lent their name to our centers. In the end,
Speaker 3: it was sort of this decision to say, well, how
Speaker 3: do we best support patients without conflicting. The Fox Foundation
Speaker 3: said well, hey, we will do the research for Parkinson's,
Speaker 3: focus on developing the cure, and in the meantime the
Speaker 3: all would focus on supporting the patient until we get
Speaker 3: the cures. So how do we provide the best care?
Speaker 3: How do we provide patient support and education, family support
Speaker 3: and education. It's really been this nice collaboration. We receive
Speaker 3: funding from the Fox Foundation to do some landmark studies
Speaker 3: like the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative, and then at the
Speaker 3: same time we're providing its excellent a patient care as
Speaker 3: we possibly can while we're looking for that cure.
Speaker 4: Mohammad not only let his name he was a patient.
Speaker 3: He had the trust in us to have us help
Speaker 3: to provide his care. I think that spoke volumes to
Speaker 3: what our program had to offer, and so I think
Speaker 3: patients had trust in us because they said, Hey, if
Speaker 3: it's good enough for Mohammed, then it's good enough for me.
Speaker 4: What was it like for the clinicians and caregivers to
Speaker 4: work with him?
Speaker 1: Shill doctor Shild to the front desk.
Speaker 3: When I first met him, I was young and in training.
Speaker 3: He used to come by the center just for sort
Speaker 3: of periodic social visits, if you will, to check out
Speaker 3: this and see how things were going. And this often
Speaker 3: would lead to sort of an impromptu everybody in the
Speaker 3: center coming and gathering around him. I reached out my
Speaker 3: hand to shake his hand, and I just remember this
Speaker 3: huge hand enveloping mine and giving me this warm handshake.
Speaker 3: And then next thing I know, I'm pulled into a hug,
Speaker 3: this giant of a man who's still a strong, imposing
Speaker 3: figure giving me this big hug that exemplifies his presence here.
Speaker 3: He was just so warm with his attention, his affections,
Speaker 3: and time. Even if he was coming here for a
Speaker 3: doctor's visit, they still had time for people as he's
Speaker 3: walking down the hall to say hello, I'm still bad.
Speaker 3: He loved telling stories and doing magic shows. It was
Speaker 3: really a good time. And he loved kids. So if
Speaker 3: we had a plan visit where we knew he was coming,
Speaker 3: we would often invite the staff's children to come to
Speaker 3: the meeting. He just loved that idea of inspiring the
Speaker 3: next generation just by his presence. But you almost couldn't
Speaker 3: get them away from a place to say, hey, okay,
Speaker 3: it's time time to move on.
Speaker 2: The reaming doctor Nimmy to the front desk.
Speaker 3: I really like that idea of just interacting with people.
Speaker 4: How did he inspire patients?
Speaker 3: The best word would be courage. With Parkinson's, there's this
Speaker 3: tendency for people to develop social anxiety. They don't like
Speaker 3: the idea of being in front of people or going
Speaker 3: out in public, So people start to get kind of
Speaker 3: holed up, stay at home, not like to go out.
Speaker 3: But yet we know it is so important for people
Speaker 3: to maintain their movement through exercise and just moving around,
Speaker 3: but also that social aspect because of his presence, the
Speaker 3: fact that he was willing to continue to have a
Speaker 3: social presence in the public eye gave courage to patients
Speaker 3: to say that they could do this. Yeah, I'm not
Speaker 3: embarrassed by Parkinson's disease. I'm going to go out there
Speaker 3: and live life. He always used to refer to the
Speaker 3: folks with Parkinson's as my people. Anytime he was talking
Speaker 3: with us about what he wanted us to do, that
Speaker 3: was make sure you take care of my peoples. I
Speaker 3: don't want any man left behind.
Speaker 4: When I first met him in the nineteen nineties, I
Speaker 4: was struck by his stamina. Later in the last years
Speaker 4: of his life. When he became more infirmed. I took
Speaker 4: my children to meet him, and he couldn't really walk
Speaker 4: without assistance at that time. Yet from a seated position,
Speaker 4: he lifted my daughter off her feet and plopped her
Speaker 4: in his lap. I was just amazed by his strength
Speaker 4: still even with the disease, and I always felt he
Speaker 4: was doing his best to defy the disease.
Speaker 3: As an example to my patients, you take somebody who
Speaker 3: was arguably one of the most fit people in the
Speaker 3: world at the time he developed Parkinson's disease, and yet
Speaker 3: continued then to exercise and use his body, despite the
Speaker 3: fact that Parkinson's was trying to take that away from him.
Speaker 3: He kept doing that. It's a testimony to patients. You say,
Speaker 3: if you actually keep up your movement, keep up your exercise,
Speaker 3: you can actually maintain your functions. You take somebody with
Speaker 3: thirty years course of Parkinson's disease, still with tremendous strength,
Speaker 3: even as you pointed out, even towards the later years
Speaker 3: of the diagnosis, to your mind over your body, saying hey,
Speaker 3: I can do this, I can keep active.
Speaker 4: And speaking of mind, I think one of the great
Speaker 4: misnomers about certainly Mohammad's case. I think people believe he
Speaker 4: wasn't there mentally, and I know for a fact, having
Speaker 4: spent time with him through a twenty five year period,
Speaker 4: he was the same Muhammad Ali between the ears.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's absolutely a brilliant point. There's a tendency
Speaker 3: when you look at somebody with Parkinson's disease and you
Speaker 3: look at oh, their facial expression is reduced and they
Speaker 3: have a hard time speaking and expressing themselves, and you
Speaker 3: might get this sense that you know, maybe there is
Speaker 3: something wrong with their intellect. But the point is exactly right.
Speaker 3: A lot of times the intellect is spared and people's
Speaker 3: thinking and ability to respond, while it may be delayed,
Speaker 3: is still intact. You learn with our patients is that
Speaker 3: you ask them a question and you just give them
Speaker 3: a little bit of extra time to respond and formulate
Speaker 3: their thoughts.
Speaker 4: I can't tell you how many people over the years
Speaker 4: who I had to straighten out when they said, oh,
Speaker 4: a'li use punch drung can't put a sentence together wandering
Speaker 4: through life.
Speaker 3: That's not Mohammed to be a little bit sort of
Speaker 3: medical here for a minute, just differences between the disorders
Speaker 3: Parkinson's disease is mostly a movement problem, so problems with
Speaker 3: tremor and initiating movement, slowness of movement, maybe some slowness
Speaker 3: of thinking, slowness of getting your thoughts out, where's the
Speaker 3: punch drunk? Or what's called CTE or chronic traumatic encephalopathies
Speaker 3: is mostly a cognitive disorder, at least to how it
Speaker 3: presents itself tends to affect people's thinking.
Speaker 4: Another factor of it that I think impacted a lot
Speaker 4: of people was the facial mask Here was this brilliant face,
Speaker 4: most expressive face. It was hard for him to make
Speaker 4: that smile. He would break out of it from time
Speaker 4: to time, but generally it was that facial masking which
Speaker 4: is part of the disease.
Speaker 3: I can't speak for Mohammed, but just in general with patients,
Speaker 3: I think that is such a frustrating aspect of things. Essentially,
Speaker 3: to have that lack of ability to move your face effectively,
Speaker 3: to smile, to laugh, to cry, to show essentially show
Speaker 3: any emotion. The facial missiles just simply don't move well.
Speaker 3: So you can have the emotion and the want to
Speaker 3: laugh and show your emotions, but it's just simply harder
Speaker 3: to do that can be very frustrating for patients, so
Speaker 3: they have to rely on people interpreting what they're saying
Speaker 3: rather than the facial expression that they're showing, so very
Speaker 3: frustrating and socially damaging aspect for patients.
Speaker 4: That expressive face of Oli, even though it was masked
Speaker 4: for a time, when you did see him smile, you
Speaker 4: knew it was a big deal. Let me ask you,
Speaker 4: how has he inspired you a clinician?
Speaker 1: As a doctor, he is.
Speaker 3: The reason I became a movement disorder neurologist, a specialist
Speaker 3: in Parkinson's disease. That early experience with him and patients
Speaker 3: in our center and realizing that this was a patient
Speaker 3: population that I really really wanted to serve to make
Speaker 3: their life better by clinically managing their disease, but also
Speaker 3: looking for cures, looking for therapy. And we continue our work,
Speaker 3: and we will continue to do it until we find
Speaker 3: a cure. We use the stories of Mohammed, the things
Speaker 3: that he's left us with, the visits that he's had.
Speaker 3: We continue to tell his story to every new patient
Speaker 3: that's newly diagnosed and hope that it inspires them to
Speaker 3: live a better life with Parkinson's. How much has he
Speaker 3: missed tremendously. Not just people that knew him here at
Speaker 3: the center, but patients routinely will come in and tell
Speaker 3: their own story about how they knew Mohammed or how
Speaker 3: they watched his fits or his courage. After the development
Speaker 3: of Parkinson's disease, everybody comes in telling their story about
Speaker 3: what they remember about Muhammad. Having a chronic progressive neurologic
Speaker 3: disease like Parkinson's makes you say, Okay, what's important in life?
Speaker 3: And there's something about that sort of wake up call
Speaker 3: for people to really focus on what is important? Is
Speaker 3: it family, is it your career? To really focus on
Speaker 3: what's important in life. And I think that the fact
Speaker 3: that Mohammad could do that gives our patients hope that
Speaker 3: they can do the same.
Speaker 4: I very much enjoyed speaking with you. This was great,
Speaker 4: my pleasure.
Speaker 3: It's been fun.
Speaker 4: You guys are doing great work. Appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: But by now, in the next episode of the Tao
Speaker 1: of Muhammad ahwe I lose the biggest male influence of
Speaker 1: my life, my true hero. Meanwhile, our citizen of the
Speaker 1: world defies the American government for the second time. We
Speaker 1: hop across the big wide Atlantic to trace Ali's little
Speaker 1: known roots to a land with a rich history of
Speaker 1: both fighting and storytelling.
Speaker 5: He said to me one day, I can't remember how
Speaker 5: old it was, as in our front room. He leaned
Speaker 5: over and he said, Tom, do you know why I'm
Speaker 5: so good at buxing? I says, no, Mohammed, I don't
Speaker 5: know why, he said, because I'm Irish. The fight in
Speaker 5: Irish isn't the title that my dad gave him. The
Speaker 5: perfect title, the People's Champion, that's the perfect title.
Speaker 1: The Dow of Mohammad Ali is produced by Imagine Audio
Speaker 1: for iHeart Podcast and hosted by Me Davis Miller. My
Speaker 1: co host is Craig Mortally, Karl Welker, Mark Bouch, Nathan Kloke,
Speaker 1: Dereck Jennings and Little Old Me Davis Miller are executive producers.
Speaker 1: Produced by Craig Mortali, sound design and mixing by Juan Border,
Speaker 1: Music by ejsparr In introducing a very good pal of
Speaker 1: mine Isaac Miller, and also Luminescence track Nouage. Visit luminescentmusic
Speaker 1: dot com to check out more from the band.