Story first appeared in:
Brian Guhl had the first inkling of a problem in 2016 when he couldn’t pull up his shorts. “You need to see a doctor,” his son told him. Guhl had been going through a tough time with a divorce and a bankruptcy as a longtime framing contractor. He had been bounding between living in Nashville and Commerce City. But this seemed like trouble of a deeper kind.
The doctor determined Guhl’s trouble dressing was due to, a disorder of the central nervous system that can cause uncontrollable movements and difficulty with balance and coordination. It can progress to the point that sufferers have trouble walking or talking. It can cause crushing depression.
Elk Meadows Ranch manager Brian Guhl wears a big smile as he poses for a photo Sept. 13, 2023, near Kremmling. He usually wears a smile while he’s out fixing fences, cutting hay or working on the ranch equipment. (Don Emmert, Special to ֱ)
A diagnosis of Parkinson’s might have some people looking ahead to a future in an assisted-living home. But Guhl set his sights on a 200-acre ranch down an 18-mile dirt road in an empty patch of Colorado southwest of Kremmling. The absent owner needed a ranch manager and was willing to take a chance on Guhl.
Nine years later, Guhl is still managing Elk Meadows Ranch. He plows snow, mows meadows, cleans ditches, strings fences, cares for horses, and does remodeling and handyman work on ranch buildings.
Clockwise from left: Guhl plows a road on the ranch Jan. 13, 2024. The tractor enables him to accomplish many tasks while working alone. Six months later, on July 17, 2024, Guhl drives his combine while cutting grass in the upper meadow. The hay from the meadow will be the major supply of food for the horses and cows. Guhl uses the tractor for other heavy work including digging a hole to fix a corral fence on Oct. 11, 2024. (Don Emmert, Special to ֱ)
Guhl’s life handling all the chores on the ranch while dealing with a disease that slows his speech and causes uncontrolled movements has been a marathon of around-the-clock pills, forced naps, frustrating falls, and more recently, the installation of life-changing hardware and electronics in his chest and head.
— what he describes a “a pacemaker for your brain” — has made life easier. He can get to more of the ranch chores. And he can enjoy some of the simpler things of life alone in a cabin: “I can get a cup of coffee without spilling it.”
Counterclockwise from left: Guhl rounds up horses Zeke and Billy the Kid to prepare them for a ride May 5, 2024, in the upper meadow at the ranch. There are four horses on the ranch that need to be fed and exercised. Guhl uses an inhaler to take a dose of levodopa as he prepares to ride Zeke. He uses the device several times a day in order to continue with his work. (Don Emmert, Special to ֱ)
“Lately, there are days when I forget I have Parkinson’s,” he said recently when he was raring to get out and plow snow.
Clockwise from left: Guhl carries a newborn calf on March 28, 2024, and March 30, 2024, he checked on a calf resting between two cows in the ranch corral. Early on the morning of March 20, 2024, Guhl looked in on one of his cows as the calving season began. After raising the calves through the summer he determined that he had other priorities on the ranch so he gave
up his small herd. (Don Emmert, Special to ֱ)
Guhl knows that Parkinson’s may eventually overtake him. Deep brain stimulation resets a malfunctioning brain, but it has a shelf-life. Guhl describes it as turning over an hourglass. The procedure gave him a new start from the days when his head would bob so forcefully he had to have his neck immobilized. The surgery turned the hourglass over. But the sand is running.
Guhl on Oct. 8, 2024, shows the stitches in his scalp that indicate where doctors implanted devices in his brain that are controlled by a pacemaker-like device in his chest. (Don Emmert, Special to ֱ)
He still has to take pills every three hours to maintain “a delicate balance,” but he calls the outdoors part of his medicine. So is being useful.
In the second stage of the deep brain stimulation surgery doctors ran a wire on each side of the skull under the scalp, and under the skin of his neck to controllers implanted in his chest. Brian said most of the discomfort from the surgery was an itching sensation. (Don Emmert, Special to ֱ)
And Guhl has plans for the future.
Guhl calls himself “a visionary kind of guy.”
Clockwise from left: Guhl looks up at the mount of a bull elk he shot that is on display at a restaurant in Kremmling on Feb 2. Brian says he may have to give up hunting, one of his favorite pastimes, because the controllers on each side of his chest make it impossible to fire a rifle or carry a backpack. He’s trying to figure out ways to get around those two issues. On May 5, 2024, four generations of Guhl’s family gathered at the ranch house to celebrate his 65th birthday with a seafood boil and cake. Guhl also took a turn on the slip and slide with his granddaughter, Janie, watching. (Don Emmert, Special to ֱ)
Now nearing the end of his 65th year, he has a new dream. He hopes to turn a bus into the vehicle for a business he will call Grey Wolf Scenic Tours. The ranch where he lives and the surrounding wilderness is smack dab in the middle of wolf-release country. With so much interest in wolves in Colorado, Guhl thinks people will come to see it and hear him talk about it.
Guhl, left, and his son Aaron pose for a photograph in front of a sign during a fundraising event Feb. 2 at Haymaker Nordic Center in Steamboat Springs. Brian attended the event to meet others with Parkinson’s and share his experience with deep brain stimulation. (Don Emmert, Special to ֱ)
For now, Guhl thinks of himself as a rancher who just happens to have Parkinson’s living in a place where “I can look up and see where I am. It’s an antidepressant.”
He finds himself smiling under his collection of soiled ball caps as he goes about his chores. He doesn’t care that prairie dogs and horses might be the only ones to witness his grin.
Colorado Sun reporter Nancy Lofholm contributed reporting and writing to this essay.
Guhl smiles as he rides his ATV on the ranch near Kremmling on Oct. 12, 2024. Guhl was very pleased just a few days after his first deep brain stimulation surgery when he said he experienced the “honeymoon” phase, when most Parkinson’s symptoms are gone temporarily. Symptoms return after a few days but once the controllers implanted in his chest were connected, during the second surgery, the symptoms were reduced again. (Don Emmert, Special to ֱ)
