More warm rain today. Hazy grey clouds right down to the water. The wind blowing from the west lets the sky clear perhaps once every couple of hours and then back to the rain, The fireweed sticks up through our berry patch and towers over my head standing on the lawn, Drops drip down the staircase of flowers until they disappear into the thicket.
I took Dot for a long walk in the Historical Park down town after checking the mail. We were three quarters of the way done when we ran into a Park Ranger in uniform with his Ticket pad in his had and I was working on defenses for whatever it was he was about to accuse Dot and I for doing. Dot was on a leash but she had barked at a woman with two older labradors and it was possible that could have been a Federal Offense we hadn’t heard of. But no. The Ranger was very nice he just asked me if we had “noticed any bears, in the park.” I told him that Dot had taken a good long sniff at some pretty fresh seeming poop and had gotten wound up in her leash for a bit on the other side of the river. He said he had a report of an adult bear in the park just a few minutes ago and was looking for it. Again he was very nice so, I didn’t ask him if he intended to give the bear a ticket for pooping in the woods, but I didn’t. It’s been my experience with some law enforcement types that attempted humor can sometimes be a Federal offense. But Dot and I agreed to keep our eyes and noses out and would be sure to let someone know if we caught wind of the bear. What I really wanted to do was chase the bear out of the Park and help her/him avoid getting a Federal ticket which is a pain in the butt to contest if you want to, seeing how the only Federal Court is in Juneau, which is hard for a bear to get to these days with the bad ferry service.
Anyway, then we went to the fish market, and the Drug store. I bought salmon, and shrimp, and a wrist brace as well as some potassium because apparently my blood pressure medication eats up potasium and causes my muscles to cramp and could be making my tendinitis worse.
The solution to every problem carries a whole host of new problems on it’s back, like a snail carries it’s house.
Jan and I had a good conversation yesterday. Her health is getting worse. Her mobility is growing worse, The drugs are reaching the end of their effectiveness and so to the deep brain stimulation. So that she really doesn’t walk anymore but shuffles and teeters, she falls periodically and freezes up completely, particularly when she is downtown. Her mental functions are still good. No dementia or memory failures out of the ordinary for a 66 year old scientist at the top of her game. Jan is incredibly, strong, stubborn and brave. She is also a workaholic. She is dedicated to her research and the people who depend on her: her students and former students. She is ferocious about the accuracy of her work and how it is presented in the world.
So… She doesn’t like to talk about being sick. In fact noticing it makes it worse. Here is an example: A few weeks ago someone saw her crossing the street very slowly, and called the police to report that there was an “drunk old woman” holding up traffic. The cop came and he was very nice and once he saw that she had a disability(Parkinson’s) he apologized for bothering her and was on his way. But as you can imagine this bummed Jan out. She vented to me, and I asked her if I could write a letter to the editor in the paper suggesting people get some more facts before calling the cops on a slow person…. I might have worked it up a little more elegantly than that but hey, it started off a lot rougher. Anyway she told me not to do that. I asked her about writing in my blog and I think she agrees because she doesn’t read my blog and doesn’t believe anyone else does either.
Anyway… that’s not the point. The point is now she is really self conscious walking down town because she doesn’t know who is watching her and who might call the cops or the FBI or Homeland Security. Self consciousness is the enemy of this mobility situation. For it’s a brain thing, not a muscle thing, the brain is not sending the right messages to the muscles and you cant move. If your brain freezes with self conscious anxiety for Jan at least, she freezes up completely. SO… after that. episode with the cops, she and Nancy were walking from under the bridge back towards the Home. Neither of them are exactly speed demons, but Jan was slowing way down. Finally she had to cross the street. A car comes up and stops. More cars stop. Her anxiety level rises. I am way up ahead with Dot waiting for her because she usually hates me and Dot to call attention to her in these situation, even by noticing her slowing down. So… the driver of the first car, a very nice man leaves his car in the middle of the street and offers to help Jan… this freaks her out…. more cars are lining up behind his car. He’s fine. He doesn’t care, and truthfully I doubt any of the Sitka drivers on that day cared, but Jan was freaking out and she couldn’t move… not an inch…. not a centimeter. Jan tried to explain this to the man and he was having none of it. He starts directing traffic around and finally Nancy wheels up with her walker and they make it to the other side of the street one inch at a time with the help of the nice man. Nancy waves to me down the block and Dot and I come down. Jan is a combination of profoundly sad and angry. She knows there is no one to be angry with other than the fate who gave her Parkinson’s. I talk with her and Dot snuggles her on a bench for a while. I go get the car and we make it home. That’s the story, but what happens is that Jan stays kind of angry and depressed for weeks…. and what does she do when she is angry and depressed?… she works all that much harder at everything, household stuff, her work stuff, chores that need doing and chores that I had no idea needed doing. I of course am mostly depressed all the time but I am more depressed, and what do I do when depressed? Sleep, read, sleep and write. Not the greatest situation to figure things out. We don’t talk about Parkinson’s for fear that she will get angry/depressed all over again, and she doesn’t talk to me at all… and why would you if you are slowing to a stop because of an incurable disease and you live with a big fat depressed slug? I mean really?
But we did talk about it yesterday. I just asked her to talk about it and she did. I won’t tell you what she said, but I said much of what I wrote above. That I admire her strength and her stubbornness. That she is dealing with an impossibly hard situation, and I don’t know what the solution is. But I know that anger and depression do not help her live the life she wants in these years of her life. We talked about what I could do to help her and what she could do to accept help from me, and from good well intentioned strangers, for in fact most people are well intended. I apologized about being such a worry wart about her illness but I wasn’t likely to change, but I would try not to irritate her but I will not stop trying to help her in the most appropriate ways, just knowing her, nudging her towards accepting aid when she needs it, and being patient when patience is called for, I also promised to exercise Dot more. That’s what she asked me to do.
Then Jan went back to talk about the nice man who got out of his car, “But he just made it worse for me, he was stalling cars. Then he started TALKING ABOUT THE WEATHER!” I just added because this is how I think… “Look. Honey, our deaths are right out there. We know this is true. Patience and stalling is a wholly acceptable way to deal with this problem right now. He was a good guy, he was a blessing… i honestly think if you can accept that you will move a little easier. But… Jan… it’s totally up to you…. you know that, I will love you either way. But I will not be happy loving you by ignoring your suffering. We have to be connected, one way or another.
She agreed, or at least I think she did. She seems happier today and so does Dot with all the extra walks and all.
By the brown river
big puppy smells the bear poop:
happy all the time.
jhs
