Published: April 23, 2008 08:29 pm            

Retired Terre Haute minister Loyal Bishop forms support

TERRE HAUTE — Loyal Bishop played three sports in college, earning seven varsity letters and induction into the Wittenberg University Hall of Honor.

Aside from losing several teeth from jarring hits — Bishop returned kickoffs for the Tigers’ football team — he emerged with no lifelong injuries or chronic pain.

“I got knocked out once, but that’s nothing,” Bishop said, chuckling. “You get up, and they hit you again.”

The physical tenacity and spiritual foundation he relied upon at that Lutheran university in Ohio, both as an athlete and a ministry student, are serving Bishop well 56 years after his record-setting days as a football, basketball and baseball standout ended.

Now 78, his opponent is Parkinson’s disease. That affliction causes tremors, stiffens muscles, slows movement and disrupts balance. In its latter stages, Parkinson’s often leads to depression and dementia. Its cause is unknown. There is no cure, but medications can treat it.

An estimated 1.5 million Americans cope with Parkinson’s daily.

After spending a half-century caring for others as a Lutheran minister, Bishop joined that list two years ago.

He and his friend, Jan Lemond, first noticed his symptoms while Bishop drove his car. Each time he lifted his left hand off the steering wheel, it shook. After tests and visits to a family doctor and a neurologist, Bishop was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

Just like the hard knocks he took in football, Bishop tried to absorb the initial effects of Parkinson’s. While talking with the neurologist, Bishop sat on his hands to stop their trembling.

“He never complains about how he feels,” Lemond said. “He’s not that type.”

Instead of griping, Bishop formed a Parkinson’s support group in Terre Haute in autumn 2006. “I suppose my own condition” led Bishop to unite fellow local Parkinson’s sufferers, and because “I’ve known people through the years who’ve had it and Alzheimer’s and dementia.”

That includes his late wife, Marilyn. A former schoolteacher, Marilyn developed Parkinson’s disease as well as Alzheimer’s disease in the mid-1990s. Initially, she began falling. Eventually, she required constant care. So, Loyal retired from 13 different community boards and organizations.

Like other folks caring for a physically or mentally impaired loved one, Bishop found help through McMillan Adult Day Service on First Avenue in Terre Haute, a nonprofit agency directed by registered nurse Margaret Scott. Lemond, whose husband had passed away 10 years earlier, helped care for Marilyn, too. Lemond was a member of the Trinity Lutheran Church congregation, where Bishop served as pastor.

After a four-year struggle with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, Marilyn died in 1999. She and Loyal had been married for 46 years.

Seven years later, Bishop found himself also battling Parkinson’s. The disease progressively worsens, but affects people differently. Some experience only minor tremors, and continue active lifestyles for years. Still, Parkinson’s often causes depression and later dementia.

Parkinson’s sufferers and those who care for them found comfort in Bishop’s support group. Those meetings, at 10 a.m. on the fourth Friday of every month in Westminster Village on Davis Avenue, feature experts in issues related to Parkinson’s disease. Physical therapists, speech therapists, nutritionists and others have spoken to the group, which often numbers 15 people.

Beyond the educational value, it’s a relief to be among people in similar situations, said Dee Personette. The 61-year-old Terre Haute woman cares for her mother, Nina Youngblood, who is 80. Personette’s mom was diagnosed with Parkinson’s six years ago, and both women attend the monthly meetings.

“This support group Loyal has started has helped me as a caregiver,” Personette said. “It’s been good to know there are other people like me.”

Daily, Scott sees people in Personette’s situation at the McMillan facility, as well as at the support group sessions.

“You come in thinking, ‘My God, it can’t get any worse,’” Scott said, “but then you hear what other people are going through and think, ‘Hey, things aren’t so bad. Life’s pretty good.’”

Bishop copes with tremors in his hands and legs, the same legs that set a record at Wittenberg for the most kickoff returns and return yardage — marks that stood for nearly 40 years. As with many afflicted with Parkinson’s, his facial expressions occasionally look like stares, even when he’s feeling jovial.

“When you look at them, they may be having a very, very good time, but their face is very blank,” Scott explained.

Another common symptom, a quieter voice, also has affected Bishop. “I’ve told him, in restaurants, to look at the waitress when he says something,” Lemond said.

His sense of humor, still sharp, is an asset. “I try to tell everybody I’ve started my own shake-and-bake society,” Bishop quipped.

When Scott and Lemond began discussing the tendency of Parkinson’s sufferers and their families to initially deny the disease, Bishop, grinning, quoted Mark Twain: “We’re liars, and damned liars.”

Bishop led congregations as a pastor for 50 years in places such as Bowling Green, Ohio; Lexington, Ky.; and Terre Haute.

He was “dynamic — that’s what I thought — as a pastor,” Lemond said, “and human, just like everybody else.”

Though he’s retired from that career as a spiritual leader, Bishop still leans on his faith and his church, Trinity Lutheran, as he deals with Parkinson’s day by day. “It’s a great comfort,” Bishop said, “and it puts you in association with other people.”



Mark Bennett can be reached at mark.bennett@tribstar.com or (812) 231-4377.

        

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