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I have Parkinson’s. More precisely, Parkinson’s has me. Not quite yet in an iron grip – there are strategies of resistance, as I shall explain. But tangible benefits of Parkinson’s are few and far between. Right now I can think of just one: the excellent wheelchair service available when passing through Toronto Pearson International Airport.
Parkinson’s seems to invite casual slights. “A false sense of well-being” is indicated as one of the side effects of levodopa, the standard drug treatment. The use of the word “false” is an existential affront; but as a former humanities professor, I shall take the charitable view and ascribe its use to sloppy writing.
For me, taking levodopa had a mildly restorative effect, but for some, the effects can be spectacular. InAwakenings, Oliver Sacks recorded the case of a “meek” and “melancholy” man who was transformed into “a Dionysiac god packed with virility and power; a wild, wonderful, ravening man-beast who combined kingly, artistic and genital omnipotence.” I stand (actually slump) in awe.
Regrettably, the effects of levodopa are short-lived (which is probably what the composer of its side effects was trying to say). Increasing intakes yields diminishing benefits, while the flailing of limbs (dyskinesia) that the drug induces intensify. Visions of life in a wheelchair hove into view, its avoidance pinned on the gamble of deep-brain stimulation through an implanted electrode.
There is empirical evidence the procedure works, but why and how remain a mystery, consistent with the disease as a whole. Parkinson’s is experienced by each patient in a different way – a challenge for those responsible for their care.
In my case, that’s Dr. Anthony Lang and his estimable colleagues at Toronto Western Hospital’s movement disorder centre. They’re dedicated and compassionate, and an appointment at the centre invariably has a bracing effect. Yet their medical protocols perhaps fall short in addressing the fact that Parkinson’s is as much an assault on personality as it is on the body. “Mood?” asked the intern, pencil hovering over a questionnaire. My reply, “It’s complicated,” terminated rather than encouraged discussion.
Tara Hardy for The Globe and Mail
One of the centre’s fellows offered this cryptic advice: “Don’t be afraid of being loud.” She might have been referencing the fact that Parkinson’s symptoms often mimic drunkenness. Disappointingly, the issue was not pursued.
Sacks put the problem of Parkinson’s in both metaphorical and metaphysical terms, envisaging “the self” as “a citadel” under attack. Cobbling together some of the more speculative propositions of Freudian and Jungian psychology, he argued the intruder is atavistic instinct and primitive behaviour dredged from ancestral memory. While the theory sounds suspiciously like the premise for a horror movie, I am reluctant to reject it because it resonates with the way I am experiencing Parkinson’s.
It’s like some ancient, long-forgotten relative has arrived uninvited in my psyche and made it clear he intends to stay. As if that weren’t bad enough, he’s determined to impose his will and insinuate his personality. He seems nourished and emboldened by the very drugs designed to conquer him.
His usual condition is a kind of emotional torpor, punctuated by sudden bouts of mawkish sentimentality. His language is less than decorous. Raising the drawbridge of the citadel-self is futile; he’s already inside.
Yet all is not lost. While the intruder can’t be beaten, he can perhaps be contained, through a strategy that combines resistance with accommodation and even occasional capitulation. True, the process involves a partial surrender of the sovereign self; but extreme dangers demand extreme remedies.
Listening to Bach and reading the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (though not at the same time) can coax the psychic intruder into a state of emotional repose. The tearful sentimentality can be accommodated selectively. My intruder has won me over to Vera Lynn’s A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, but I summon every fragment of my decimated self to resist Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville. On the other hand, we find common ground in enthusiasm for the balladry of Hank Williams. (I’ve long held the view that Cold Cold Heart merits inclusion in every anthology of romantic poetry.)
Which brings us to the Will Ferrell quandary. While an unabashed admirer of Ferrell’s earlier movies (loved him in Elf), my pre-Parkinson self recoiled at the remorseless obscenity of his later oeuvre. But I have since changed my mind. I am nearly ready to be persuaded that Get Hard is a fine achievement of modern cinema.
Though I still resent the intruding beast, we have established a reasonable modus vivendi. I can even imagine a creative collaboration in directing the hallucinations that one neurologist cheerfully told me is the “next thing” I have to look forward to.
It is doubtful that Parkinson’s can be beaten in a comprehensive and triumphalist way, at least in my lifetime. But it can perhaps be outwitted, with support from family and friends – and Marcus Aurelius and Will Ferrell.
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