My Mother's Disease

My mother has had Parkinson's Disease for the past fourteen years. It's hard for me to even remember a time when she didn't, though I can if I try. When I think back to the beginning, the first few years, there never seemed to be anything wrong. Perhaps my parents felt it best not to tell my brother and me because they knew we would not understand. Or perhaps they did tell us, and I just don't remember.

I was around four years old and my brother was six when my mother was diagnosed. When I think back on it, I have a hard time actually remembering when I noticed that she was really "sick." I do remember once, in 6th grade, I brought in an absence note to my teacher for having been out with a cold. My mother wrote it that morning and was somewhat shaky at the time, considering mornings are never good since her medicine hasn't set in yet. My teacher joked about it in front of the class, saying that it looked like my mom wrote it on the bus or something. I didn't say anything, but inside it hurt. I knew that there was something wrong with my mother, but I didn't know what.

To explain it to me at that age, she would tell me that I could say she had "a damaged nerve in her neck." That was good enough for me considering I could never remember that funny name used to refer to it. As the years went by, I learned more and more about it, but only a little bit at a time. I knew how to handle the situations that came up. For example, if her medicine didn't set in right I knew how to get her moving until it clicked in, or if she needed another dose and sent me searching, I knew where to look, but I still didn't really know exactly what it was that she had. To me, it was just a part of my life, a part of growing up.

I don't know how old I was when I realized that there was something seriously wrong. She worsened so gradually over time that it was almost imperceptible to the rest of us. "Oh, my mother has Parkinson's" became the response to numerous questions from friends when they asked what was wrong. Countless questions of "How's your mother doing?" or "I haven't seen Kathy around lately, is she okay?" were most of what I heard from family friends when I went to Sunday service or some other social gathering.

Her medicine just wasn't working anymore. She'd be fine for a little bit, but then she'd suddenly "crash" as she called it, referring to her medicine not working anymore. To me it was to be expected, this was just part of my life. When I left for college, things were easier since I didn't have to directly deal with what was happening, but on the occasional visit home, she was getting worse and worse. One of those weekends last semester, my parents informed me that mom was going to have surgery, brain surgery to be exact. "Oh . . . okay." was my response.

The news was rather incomprehensible to me at the time, but as the date drew closer, I slowly understood what was about to happen. My parents took my brother and me to a conference about the procedure at a hospital on Long Island. I didn't really want to go; I was sure I would be bored. But I found that it really did help. They showed a video of a patient who just recently had the surgery. Beforehand she was very shaky as she tried to walk down a hall in the hospital and sit in a chair. After the surgery, she was able to stand, move around and function. It was rather amazing.

December 16th, the day of my chemistry final, my mother went in for the surgery. She'd already been in the hospital for a day or two before for preparation. My brother and I went through our morning with a constant cloud over our heads, not knowing what was really happening to her. Then we hopped on the train to hopefully make it to the city before she came out of the surgery. When we got there, she was in intensive care, and she looked rather funny to me. I felt like a little girl wondering what was happening to her mommy. She stayed in the hospital for a few more days, and was recovering quite well. I bought her a little stuffed puppy from the gift shop downstairs ; she liked it, and it made her smile. That meant a lot to me. My father was exhausted from spending as much time as he possibly could with my mother. He sent my brother and me home that first night; someone had to be home with the dog.

It's been almost two months now, and my mother is better than I have seen her in a long time. She can move around freely, and the side effects she had to deal with from her medicine were cut down dramatically when they reduced the dosages. Even if her medicine stops working, it only takes her at most ten minutes to click back in again. It's a wonder to watch. She's so much happier, though she's still getting used to it. Things aren't perfect yet, but any improvement is better than nothing. I'm just glad that we were able to help her get better and not have to stand by and watch her deteriorate. When people ask me, "How's your mother doing?" I can reply with a smile, "Oh, she's doing just fine."