Palmer Lake man covers Dalai Lama event 

By Chris Fitzgerald, KP News

When the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu spoke in Seattle during the weeklong “Seeds of Compassion” conference in April, people from all over the Northwest sought tickets to hear the holy men. All events filled quickly; many people who wanted to attend could not.

One of the professional cameramen covering the conference was Greg Magoc, a Palmer Lake homeowner. Recounting one evening in particular, Magoc said, “As Desmond Tutu was leaving the stage, he put his hand on my shoulder and blessed me. How many people can say that?”

Magoc has covered Pope John Paul II, Willie Nelson, presidents Clinton and Bush Sr., Tom Petty, and numerous sporting events, including current Mariners games at Safeco Field. When he talks about what his life might have been had his parents taken the advice of a physician many years ago, this grateful man, usually so animated and talkative, becomes pensive.

The nightmare years

Magoc describes his behavior as “disruptive” beginning at about age 6, worsening as he grew. He could not be still; head-jerking, body tics, energy that exhibited in odd ways troubling to both Magoc and classmates plagued him. “Nobody knew what was going on,” he says. Plausible adult reasons for the odd behavior included acting out, bad habits needing correction, attention-getting obnoxiousness. 

Through sheer force of will, Magoc was an athletic and scholastic “comer” at his St. Louis, Mo., parochial school. The family saw scholarships on the horizon for this youngest of seven children. Two weeks in the hospital at age 12 and batteries of brain, neurological and psychiatric testing altered that future with a diagnosis of a little-understood disorder called Tourette syndrome (TS).

Magoc remembers listening to the doctor read one sentence from a textbook about the disorder to his parents. “That was all there was. One sentence,” he says. The close-knit family refused the doctor’s recommendation: indefinite psychiatric confinement. A second psychiatrist put the preteen on haldol, an anti-psychotic medication used to treat TS. To counteract side-effects, Magoc received ritalin, a drug now known to be adverse for treatment of TS, and cogentin, prescribed to relieve new and exacerbated TS symptoms caused by the first two. These drugs blurred the world for Magoc, sending him into deep depression relieved only through sleep.

Barely functioning, he still attended school, friendless, existing in a body fast becoming shapeless from prolonged lethargy. “My grades dropped,” he says. “The buddies I was tight with stopped coming around.” At 17, life was not worth living; he contemplated suicide.

Hopeful directions

About that same time, two events occurred that saved Magoc’s life. He learned a church member’s daughter, who was a school teacher, led her class in daily healing meditations. He believes he is one beneficiary of that compassion. And his eldest sister found literature suggesting vitamins B6 and B12 for natural symptom control. The entire family read the findings; Magoc tossed his pills and began self-medicating with vitamins, protocol he continues today. He was encouraged to learn from his life experience. When self-pity encroached, his dad reminded him that others with verbal tics (which Magoc does not have) or more severe symptoms “had it worse than me.”

Magoc usually disguises his symptoms; when he doesn’t, his body would twitch as though startled, or his neck jerk as if flinching from an insect bite, small grunts the only vocalizations accompanying some movements. Imagine hiccups that continue 24/7 throughout a lifetime. Imagine an itch, as Magoc attempts to describe the inner sensation, in the worst place that you can’t scratch. “You think about it and it grows and you think about it and it grows until pressure forces you to scratch. The result is not pleasure, but release. TS is with you all the time  – it is you.”

  Magoc comes from a union family with a strong work ethic. As great as his panic at the threat of institutionalization, he also feared something else. “It (confinement) meant I would never have a job or contribute, would be a drag on society.”

Determined to have a career while still a teenager managing his disorder through vitamins, Magoc devised a plan for his future. He had replaced sports with music, teaching himself to play guitar and keyboards. Outgoing and gregarious by nature, he wanted to be “part of the action” in some way that protected him from a public display of symptoms, and also earned the acceptance of his peers. He obtained a technical degree in electronics, became a stage-hand and liked it so much, he went back to get a bachelor’s degree in audio production when he was 28. Working alone in an audio booth seemed ideal. “Nobody could see me on the other side of the glass,” he says. That plan never materialized.

Unexpected career shift

Through a twist of union-leveraged fate, Magoc was hired by nonunion management directly out of school to be a cameraman at the St. Louis Amphitheatre. Magoc quickly learned on the job and became not only a professional excelling in his field, but found a new wellspring of strength within himself. He says when he’s doing camera work, he’s focusing on the viewfinder or listening to his director in the earset, “and TS melts away.”

“It’s almost therapy,” Magoc explains. “TS is outside then; it’s like clouds just clearing away.” He marvels that he can be on a stage or media platform in front of thousands of people, and still be in an envelope of secure anonymity. “No one is focusing on me, yet I’m right there. It makes me feel strong,” he says. “I’m not Touretting at all during events. It’s like I’ve conquered something.”

His recent work in Seattle caught the eye of a Wisconsin event producer; another job offer came from University of Washington. He doesn’t tell employers about TS; doesn’t want to prejudice them. In a way, Magoc sees TS as a kind of gift propelling him forward. “I want to show any individual, adults or kids, that you don’t have to sit and be idle. Get involved,” he says.  “You can overcome something (that seems too big to tackle).”

Magoc and his wide, Jenni Venegoni, have known each other since childhood. Once released from the torment of medication, he remembered the pretty girl who had not been afraid of him. “It took me two years, but I finally succeeded in going out with Jenny,” he says with a smile. “She knew about the Tourette’s and it was never a problem for her. Jenny made it easier. She’s always been a friend.”

A calm, quiet woman, Venegoni is a contrast to Magoc, who shifts constantly, hiding small involuntary movements his body has no choice but to display. “I don’t want to sound addicted to Jenny,” he offers softly, “but I am. I don’t know what I would do without her support.”

Since moving across country in 2003 to their home in Palmer Lake, the couple first experienced the delight of living in the small lakeside community, and then the prejudice that arises when misunderstood “differentness” is observed and feared. Early in those first months, Magoc said he found casual opportunities to let neighbors know he had TS. “It’s better for people to know so they don’t think you’re a freak,” he says. “It’s not contagious; people don’t have to be afraid for themselves or their children.”

Several unfortunate incidents occurred subsequent to Magoc’s efforts at becoming involved with the community homeowner’s association. In short order, the couple say their status went from welcomed newcomers to shunned outsiders encouraged to move away. Unsubstantiated claims of bizarre and obscene behavior surfaced among some neighbors in documents during a short-lived, dismissed court action. “I am not any of those things (they claimed),” Magoc says. “(The false accusations) were damaging and hurtful.” This former union shop steward is a tough nut; he realizes he is slightly right (or left) of average, and deals with it. “But,” he says, “Jenny – this good woman – does not deserve the way she has been treated.” They would like to join with neighbors in putting all misunderstandings behind them, and begin afresh in this community they hope to enjoy for many years to come.

And if anyone wants to know about TS, just ask Magoc – he’s a lifelong expert on the subject. In any given setting, except behind a camera, he’s easy to spot. He’s the one shifting about like a restless 4-year-old in a long church service, trying his best to make others feel more at ease. “I wish people had more empathy, more compassion,” he says. “If someone with a challenge does overcome it (but remains different than you), can’t that be considered a sign of strength and character?” Magoc says TS has taught him to put himself in someone else’s shoes and “not mess with the little guy.” In school, only other outsiders let him come around, and he learned that any person “might have a lot to offer that you are overlooking, because they are not like you.” The lesson he lives by is simple: “Give people an avenue to share what they can.”

 

 

 

     

 

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