SMALL STEPS AND BIG HEART LEAD TO FULL LIFE FOR PINE BLUFF MAN

By Judy Normand/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF

He was born 67 years ago at Emerson and attended school at Springhill and Townsend Park. By his own account, Joe Blanks Sr.’s childhood, teen-age, young and middle adult years were fairly normal, physically.

“But, in 1999, I started getting clumsy,” Blanks said during a recent interview at Jefferson Regional Medical Center’s Wellness Center. It was also during that year, Blanks said, when he was diagnosed and able to put a name to the clumsiness — hereditary familial spastic paralysis, a condition characterized by a progressive weakness and stiffness in the legs and for which there are no specific treatments. Luckily, the majority of individuals with this condition are said to live normal, full lives and have a normal life expectancy.

Blanks is one of that majority.

A bricklayer by trade, Blanks says what he misses most is his job and the interaction with his co-workers.

“I miss working with other people, but it was hard work and I had to do a lot of climbing,” he said, “and I just can’t do that anymore.”

What he can do, he said, is stay positive and keep moving, something he does regularly at the Wellness Center, which often prompts slightly chagrined responses from the physically fit men and women who frequent the gym and tend to complain about the tedious workouts: “We have absolutely no excuse at all, do we?”

Blanks’ walker, with neon green tennis balls on the tips, supports the slender man as he maneuvers slowly through the sea of exercise equipment, spaced at regular intervals across the floor of the Wellness Center. At one machine or another, he’ll let go of the walker to ease himself onto its seat, sometimes obliged to lift his weakened legs with his arms in order to adjust his position for the exercise. Setting the weight at 140-pounds for the leg press, Blanks proceeds to will his legs to push forward, then ease back, slowly, for several muscle-stretching repetitions. It’s not an easy thing to do — or watch — but it gets done.

Blanks is thankful for the physical activity, not only for his body, but also for his mind.

“It’s better than sitting around the house. It keeps my mind busy. I don’t have so many memories,” he said, referring to the loss of his wife, on June 5, to congestive heart failure. They were married, he said, for 47 years.

Frankie Williams has been a licensed practical nurse at JRMC for 41 years and is a friend to Blanks, having helped care for his ailing wife before her death. They have been able to support each other, she said, as she’s also experienced the recent death of a loved one.

“We’re actually neighbors,” Williams said of Blanks. “He’s a wonderful guy and we’re sort of emotionally bound.” Williams said she will be there for Blanks as long as he can walk and then, if needed, will “push him around in a wheelchair!”

Dr. Martha A. Flowers, the Blanks’ family physician, said it was not a foregone conclusion that people suffering from hereditary familial spastic paralysis will end up in wheelchairs. Some do, she said, but not all.

“Mr. Blanks is a joy to work with,” she said. “He never complains and still works when he can. He’s a very smart man — a lesser man would have gone on disability, but not him. Of course, I’ve suggested to him that exercise is always good, but he started doing this on his own. He’s just very upbeat about life.”

Blanks is active in his church — Pine Hill Missionary Baptist — and gives thanks regularly for what he is still able to accomplish, mentally and physically.

“I realize there’s always somebody worse off than me,” he said.