WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?

Something is happening.  I don't know what it is, but I can tell you this: I don't like it and and I'm  as positive as any patient-who-believes-she-is-can-diagnose-as-well-as-her-doctor that it has something to do my Parkinson's Disease.  All of a sudden, I am having difficulty walking.  My nose arrives about a foot before the rest of me because I've started to tilt forward when I walk.  And, my whole body moves at 35 degrees forward.  Also, I stumble.  I stubbed my toe two times - the same toe.  Finally, I shake. My hands tremor at times. I cannot type.  Even if the tremors are light, they still interfere with things.  When typing, one of my fingers will randomly drop and one will hit some  random key  At other times the tremor is so severe I cannot type at all.  I don't know what these things are all about, but I know that Parkinson's does these types of things.

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I wrote the above a week and a half ago. This morning, I sat in Bob's office and wept.  I was trying to do last week's work for my on-line course in labor law.  I don't know all about the subject matter, but,as a lawyer, I certainly know how to read the law and apply it to the fact situation.  Except this last week-end.  For three days, I tried to form an answer to the first question.  I identified five issues and knew what laws applied.  But I couldn't begin to combine the issues and the law.  I sat in front of this very computer and couldn't type a single word.  Not one.


I told Bob that this just wouldn't be.  That I just wouldn't live in a world where my brain was confused and I could hit my daughter's aquarium with the car and have nary a clue about what I did.  I'm tired of forgetting words and names; of tripping on the stairs.  I told him about how I kept each of my kids' schedules in my head, never having to write any of it down.  I told him about how two years after I left the law firm, one of my partners called me to ask a question about why the plan's loan policy was written like it was. I read it and quickly said, "Oh yeah!  I remember.  We wanted to do XX, but we couldn't do XX.  so we did YY which yielded the same result.  He couldn't believe that I remembered  that.

And neither could Bob.  I sat there with tears trickling down my cheeks and explained how my brain just wouldn't do what I needed for it to do.  There have been times in the past that Bob has marginalized what I've said about my brain, telling me that sometime he, too, can't remember things or that he, well,... I don't remember, but there was something.  This time he told me that the stages of grief don't apply just when we lose a loved one or a pet.   Rather, he  legitimatized the way I felt.  He went through some of the stages of grief.  When he got to "anger"  he asked me who I blamed for what was happening me.  I told him no one - no one raced by me with a PD stick and struck me.  Nor did God look down from above and smite me with Parkinson's Disease.  The fact of the matter is "crap happens."    Bob was thrilled that that was my opinion.  I already conquered one of the elements!

Bob didn't stop there though.  He qualified what he knew about Parkinson's, but wondered why these symptoms appeared so quickly - questions I didn't consider.  Other of his clients with PD seemed to progress much more slowly.  We then discussed a new antidepressant that my psychiatrist prescribed for depression.   As we talked, and examined the side effects of my new prescription, Bob noticed that not only were the symptoms I have relevant to Parkinson's, they were side effects of the new drug!


So I don't know.  I want to hope that it's just side effects - easily fixed.  But I don't want to be disappointed.  If this jumbled brain is here to stay, I won't be able to deal with it.  It will be a very long, lonesome, dark, scary journey and, I'm going to rely on Bob to talk me through it.  He's serious and focused.  He insisted (not  wished)  that I contact my psychiatrist ASAP.  I've done that - so now we'll see.

G 
 

I HAVE PARKINSON'S

I have Parkinson's Disease.  No, really.  I have Parkinson's Disease. My neurologist  diagnosed me in August 2008.  Today, I heard what he said.

He told me I had Parkinson's Disease.  Now, I'm not going to say I didn't believe him because I did believe him.  It's just that I already was so sick with depression, I just didn't see where it was a factor in my daily life.  So I just went right along, ignoring it and thinking that it wasn't so bad.  

Since 2008, I have admitted I have Parkinson's.  I've accepted the tremors.  I've accepted my sometimes unsteady gait.  I've accepted I need a handrail when others do not.  But what I haven't had until recently is buy-in.

All of the things I felt before are still true.  I have Parkinson's and it's inconvenient now.  It  promises nothing but for an uncertain future.  It's made me depressed.  It's made me angry.  But now, I  guess what I'm feeling - well, actually more like doing - is mourning.  I'm mourning the loss of my dopamine.  I know.  It sounds stupid.  It sounds disrespectful and I don't mean any disrespect.  I'm mourning because I'm sad - sad about what I've lost.  That's different from what I have.

But, here's what else I know - I know it's OK to be sad - to be in mourning.  Sad will pass. 

ADVANTAGE

I saw my neurologist yesterday.  Now, I'm usually a glass-half-empty kind of gal, but, I've come up with a glass-half-full view on something.

I was telling my neurologist about how my younger daughter was complaining to my older daughter about how long it takes me to eat.  We were at a restaurant and the others at the table finished their meals and were waiting on me to finish mine.  I also told him about how I didn't seem to be able to keep up with the other teachers walking to the Buttery for lunch.  (They have butteries in Great Britain - it's an uptown way of saying cafeteria.)   

As a matter of fact, my doctor always asks me to move faster when I take my little stroll down the hallway in his office.  He told me I also talk slower than when he first met me.  Bob told me that, too. The bottom line is, I've slowed down.  My neurologist told me "slow" was an early Parkinson's symptom - in fact, it frequently presents before tremors.  

OK.  So what advantage do (you and) I have?   Well,  I'm not expected to move at today's hectic pace!!  I have no excuse not to stop and smell the roses - listen to the bugs - watch the night-time sky.  I can take the time I need to respond to a question and I will look thoughtful - not slow.  I will look measured - not scattered.  I can bring an atmosphere of calm to the classroom.

Like I told you, my glass is always half empty.  As for slowness though, I'm going to look at my glass as half full -- and take a L O O O  N  G time to drink it.


G