My Father The Dam

Silent, strong and deep, my father was like a dam.  He held back the emotions that must have been in those final years. The anxiety of knowing he had Parkinson’s disease that commandeered his body. The fear of knowing he was caught in a narrow gorge as awareness of his world shrank with Lewy Bodies dementia. The struggle to communicate as turmoil replaced the peaceful, still waters of the early days.  And in the end, when he could no longer hold the waters back, he let them pass.  They gushed through turbines, sending high-voltage emotions to us, his family; providing as he always tried to do.

Is it my turn?  Is Parkinson’s genetically determined? Or is my parentage simply one factor of many? Was it the innocent but unavoidable exposure to the toxic chemicals, cast like a canopy over our apple orchard trees each spring and summer? It could be either, both or neither. We may never know. For Dad it doesn’t really matter, and for me it matters little. Although it may assist those others who will know the many symptoms of this idiosyncratic disease. But, even if I knew, there is no reason to blame my lineage. We all pass on our imperfections, resist them as we might. We cannot hold the water back completely or indefinitely.

He was not perfect but he did his best.  He was a good father. I think of him still, these 10 years gone, my father, the dam.

Stuck in the Tunnel

I knew this was a special medical procedure when at least half of the 30 or so ailments or conditions found in the hospital’s disclaimer I had to sign were things I had never heard of. I did not want to ask.  I just ticked the ‘no’ boxes and signed at the bottom and handed the form and clipboard back to the clerk.

She then asked a curious question, “Can you hold your arms up above your head?” Not thinking this could be particularly important, I raised my hands above my head in a diving position with only slight strain in my Parkinson’s-stiffened shoulders. Apparently, I passed the test. However, I failed to ask what would prove to be a critically important question; “How long?”

It was not the first mistake I had made that morning. I had followed the preparatory instructions to the letter, assuming when it said, “nothing to eat or drink for four hours before”, it meant that I had to postpone taking my Parkinson’s medications. I thought it best to tell the medical clerk not to be alarmed at my shaking, and explained my unmedicated state.  She obtained approval for me to take my pills, but it was too late. The shaking had begun.

Of course, the tremors only increased when I saw the technician arrive with a syringe and other paraphernalia. After searching for a vein, he informed me that I was being injected with gadolinium. Gadolinium sounded to me like the name of a small village occupied by hobbit-like creatures. Or, perhaps, a newly-discovered galaxy. In fact, I was informed it is one of 17 rare earth chemical elements, and it is used in conjunction with an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine) because of the element’s magnetic properties providing better definition for the images to be taken. I assumed it was safe.

Having surrendered up my hearing aids, asking any further questions, or at least hearing any answers, was likely to prove challenging, if not impossible. Patting the platform, indicating I was to lie down on a somewhat uncomfortable horizontal frame, the technician moved my arms above my head into the recently demonstrated dive position. Speaking loudly in one ear, he asked what I assumed was a rhetorical question; “Can you hold this position for the next 35 minutes?” How was I supposed to know? I do not recall ever having to maintain that position for 35 minutes.

I discovered a long time ago that I am not claustrophobic (that had been one of the questions on the disclaimer I had marked no”). And it’s a good thing because I was slid into the MRI tube feet first, arms in the dive position, looking like I was practising for the one-man luge event in the Olympics, except for the arms. Hearing various clicking sounds, I knew we were “locked and loaded”. I realized then that 35 minutes would be a very long time.

Squeezed into place, unable to move, the procedure began. What followed was a series of very loud sounds; something like a cross between banshee screams and intermittent air raid siren. In advance of each noisy invasion, there was a computer-generated voice, which seemed in my deafened state to whisper, “Breathe in. Hold your breath.” I wanted to ask, “How long?” But I was certain I wouldn’t have heard the answer. So I obeyed, breathing in all the oxygen I could, given the extremely cramped conditions, and breathing out when told to do so. All the while, the machine emitted computerized screams.

After what seemed like a lot longer than 35 minutes, I was withdrawn from the MRI “compression cylinder”. Despite aching shoulders, a couple of needle stab wounds, I knew the answer to the questions: “Yes, I can hold my arms over my head in the dive position for 35 minutes.” But please don’t ask me to do so.

Men, Aging and Parkinson’s Disease

Sad and silent. These men shuffled into the small meeting room, supposedly to hear me share my “story”, my experience with Parkinson’s disease. While I am a poor judge of age, I estimate that they were all in their 80s or 90s. Most of them appeared to remain ambulatory only with the use of a walker, neatly parked near the door like shopping carts at the entrance to a grocery store.

I didn’t know whether I should be encouraged by their attendance, or discouraged by their lack of engagement in any sort of dialogue. It was a tough crowd. Usually when I speak in public I try to connect with some friendly faces in the audience. In small group settings, I will ”tag” each listener in order to make some connection, searching each person’s eyes for navigational clues of approval, disbelief or uncertainty. But gleaning anything from this group proved challenging, if not impossible. Except for my host, who had been responsible for my invitation, this somber troupe of seniors seemed to have left their smiles in some secret Sphinx -like place in the past.

Defeated, discouraged and mute, they remained unresponsive, leaving me to answer my own questions, whether rhetorical or not. Like prisoners attending mandatory rehabilitation classes, I wondered if any of them would value or remember anything I said by the time they completed their shambling journey back to their chosen isolation.

“What have we done?” I asked myself.  As I looked around the room I found myself comparing two scenarios. On one side there were the interactions I recently enjoyed with students who probed, questioned and found it difficult to remain quiet for any length of time. Those engagements seemed diametrically opposed to this gathering of elders, who neither questioned nor commented, apparently preferring silence. What happened in the 60 years between the ages of 20 and 80? Immediately realizing how close I am to the latter, I found a nameless fear slowly seeping into my soul. Surely, aging is more than just surviving. Life must be more than an endurance test that we will inevitably fail. What will prevent me drowning in the “slough of despond” as I age? What will save me from the self-pity of a shrinking solitude?

We aging males, entering the “retirement” era, are left with many demanding questions, perhaps best summarized in the one posed by John C. Robinson book’s title: ”What [do] aging men really want?” We can all agree that we don’t want to feel threatened, angry, afraid, useless, embarrassed, regretful, bitter, or insecure as we age (or prematurely experience aging due to the far from gentle erosion of Parkinson’s disease).

But what do we really want? Giving up is not acceptable. Perhaps there might be one answer to be found in the final words of the poem, “Ulysses”, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

     Tho’ We are not now that strength which in old days

     Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; 

     One equal temper of heroic hearts,

     Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 

     To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.