A Month With New Meaning

With April being Parkinson’s Awareness Month, I wanted to share some health news with you. 

This past September, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.  Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative disorder of the central nervous system that affects nerve cells in the brain.  In short, a person's brain slowly stops producing a neurotransmitter called dopamine. With less and less dopamine, the nerve cells die, and a person has less and less ability to regulate his/her movements, body and emotions.

For about two years, I had been experiencing slight tremors with my right arm that progressively worsened. Over time, my right arm stopped naturally swinging as I walked, and I began dragging my right foot as I stepped. I attributed the “weakness” to an old shoulder injury, and the foot-dragging to wearing flip-flops. 

As it turns out, I exhibited many of the primary and secondary young-onset symptoms of the disease.  The good news is, with medications and rigorous exercise, unless I am an outlier, I should be able to manage well for the foreseeable future.

That said, I encourage you to learn more about Parkinson’s.  The Michael J. Fox Foundation is doing incredible things to advance research in this area.  If you are feeling philanthropic, now or in the future, after donating to Deerfield, consider going to my fundraising page athttp://www2.michaeljfox.org/site/TR/TeamFox/TeamFox?px=2304245&pg=personal&fr_id=1890

All the best,

Dean

Makin' Movies

After 3 years of trying to get the next movie off the ground, and a steep learning curve on "Hollywood values", I was fortunate to work with some incredible people and finish shooting (first step in long march to your screens) an anti-romantic comedy called Brand New Old Love, written and directed by a young comedienne here in LA. It is a low budget project but we were fortunate to get some great and known actors from movies and TV shows like Broad City, You're the Worst and Silicon Valley and Austin Powers. But my highlight was the day we worked with Brian Doyle Murray, the writer of Caddyshack and we shot on a golf course no less. I had to explain to him that phrases like "you're killing me Smails" are part of my everyday vocabulary and I was not just trying to suck up. He was incredibly gracious and a tremendous actor. Unfortunately, I did not get an opportunity to ask about his years rooming with John Belushi. Otherwise, all adequate, spend a lot of non-working time walking the dog (not a metaphor) in LA for foreseeable future and lucky to see DA folks in region.

3D Challenge Final Day

Double your Deerfield Donation (notice the 3 Ds?).  Last day.  Do it now!

https://deerfield.edu/alumni/april-challenge/

Deerfield's 3D Challenge from Deerfield Academy on Vimeo.