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My Father
I found out Friday night that my father, who is a sharp-minded, physically vigorous 75 year-old, has Parkinson's.
"Incurable but non-fatal," is what I'm told.
My dad has always been a proud and self-reliant person. It's going to be very hard for him to come to terms with having a disease which will steadily erode his ability to control his own limbs and impair his ability to take care of himself.
It could, of course, be a whole lot worse: Alzheimers or cancer, for example.
But this initiates my family into a whole new phase of our lives together.
Friday night was one of those very few times (that I could count on one hand) when I have seen/heard my father start to break down into tears. Mom told me face-to-face over dinner. I called Dad on the phone later. I suspect he wanted Mom to tell my daughter and me because he didn't trust his own self-control yet. But we had a good talk. He told me he needed to be able to talk to me about this as we go forward. I told him I wanted him to be able to talk to me. His own father died of colonic cancer and never said a word to Dad about it beyond the straight facts of his condition. Dad doesn't want it to be that way for us.
I've been waiting for this for about a year. Not because I had any conscious thought that anything was wrong, but I've had a steadily growing awareness of my parents' age. I've *known* that one day I would get a phone call, or be told, "We went to the doctor yesterday and. . . ." So the shoe has finally dropped. But then again, the symptoms have evidently been going on for about a year, so maybe I tapped into something. Or maybe it's just coincidence. I really hadn't expected to have to deal with this so soon: five or six years from now, maybe. But the feeling of "it *will* happen" has been very strong.
I don't know what to do to help him.
I guess I'll find that out as we go along.
For those of you who pray, please remember him during this time of adjustment as he searches for the courage and the faith to face this.
I love my father more than anyone else in the world, except my daughter, and there is no one I hold in higher respect.
"Incurable but non-fatal," is what I'm told.
My dad has always been a proud and self-reliant person. It's going to be very hard for him to come to terms with having a disease which will steadily erode his ability to control his own limbs and impair his ability to take care of himself.
It could, of course, be a whole lot worse: Alzheimers or cancer, for example.
But this initiates my family into a whole new phase of our lives together.
Friday night was one of those very few times (that I could count on one hand) when I have seen/heard my father start to break down into tears. Mom told me face-to-face over dinner. I called Dad on the phone later. I suspect he wanted Mom to tell my daughter and me because he didn't trust his own self-control yet. But we had a good talk. He told me he needed to be able to talk to me about this as we go forward. I told him I wanted him to be able to talk to me. His own father died of colonic cancer and never said a word to Dad about it beyond the straight facts of his condition. Dad doesn't want it to be that way for us.
I've been waiting for this for about a year. Not because I had any conscious thought that anything was wrong, but I've had a steadily growing awareness of my parents' age. I've *known* that one day I would get a phone call, or be told, "We went to the doctor yesterday and. . . ." So the shoe has finally dropped. But then again, the symptoms have evidently been going on for about a year, so maybe I tapped into something. Or maybe it's just coincidence. I really hadn't expected to have to deal with this so soon: five or six years from now, maybe. But the feeling of "it *will* happen" has been very strong.
I don't know what to do to help him.
I guess I'll find that out as we go along.
For those of you who pray, please remember him during this time of adjustment as he searches for the courage and the faith to face this.
I love my father more than anyone else in the world, except my daughter, and there is no one I hold in higher respect.
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*big hug*
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It's amazing how good even a virtual, long-distance hug feels.
And you remind me, verbose intellectual that I am, that sometimes the best thing to do is simply to hug someone, or to be present, not to try to say anything. I think that's something I'm going to need to learn to do better.
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You do have my prayers.
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I'll let you know.
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Do you know if they'll be trying to control it with dopamine or something similar?
All my wishes and prayers for the best.
Chantal
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I'm sure they will try to control it, but it's only just been diagnosed, so there isn't a treatment plan yet. My father is the president of the board of trustees of the HMO, so I'm assuming he'll be getting the best care they have.
He's the first person in his family to get Parkinsons, so my guess is that his was caused by environmental factors. My ex-husband suggested that it may have been the gardening chemicals he used all these years. (He grew champion roses for two decades.)
When I think of hereditary stuff, I think of the fact that my mother and both her sisters are breast cancer survivors.