Rushing through Paris Charles de Gaulle airport,
connecting from Dakar to Montréal, my husband AK managing the carry-ons, my
Senegalese cat “Taxi” snug in her airplane cage -
on my lap -
I came face-to-face with the New Me in the mirror of the Terminal
2E elevator,
pushed, expertly and with charming humour by the
Manchester born Air France attendant,
in a wheelchair.
First time in my life.
Well except for the giddy ride through Dakar’s much more
condensed airport for the previous night’s flight to Paris. Until then I’d
always struggled along, dragging my own carry-on and my “bad” left foot,
determined (as always) to do it myself.
The cat did not look unhappy in the mirror.
But I realized that if I want to migrate between Senegal
(winter) and Canada (summer) every year I’d have to make some concessions to my
Parkinson's disease.
It's all about concessions, pacing oneself, prioritizing,
calling myself gimpy if I want to, not letting others’ ideas of what I should
do or be interfere with my way of becoming the new me.
Parkinson's disease. It’s a bitch.
And when you have it, it has you.
(a swiftly emoted cliché intruding upon my
memory’s recounting)
I remember years ago reading a book about West Coast
native people called Daughters of Copperwoman. One of the lessons it taught me
was that looking in the face of Fear, not blinking or turning away, gave its power to you. Many traditions teach
this. An old boyfriend of mine once gave me a Tibetan silver bracelet with face
to face lapis lazuli dragonheads. Same story.
Acceptance is important. A positive attitude is helpful.
But taking on the force of that which wants to destroy you - this degenerative
neurological disease characterized by increasing physical and sometimes mental
dysfunction (and drooling for
heaven’s sake!) – and making it work for you is better IMO.
One reason I want to blog catsaway with Parkinson's is that the perky messages I read
from other people with early-onset Parkinson's enraged me with their pastel
coloured version of the destruction being wrought on our lives.
To each his own, of course.
But I could no more relate to them than I could to the
elderly people I’d joined in treatment at the Pacific Parkinson's Research
Centre at UBC in Vancouver.
Breeding ground for denial - especially when the Big
Specialist humbly explained that it never happened to him, but he wasn't sure if I had PD or not. So he wanted me
to start taking the PD medication SINEMET to see if it would help (in which
case it would mean I did have PD – if it didn’t help it didn’t mean I didn’t
have it). Kind of like the medieval: if the witch drowns she is innocent.
