Tag: parkinsons

Other items of interest

November Blues

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close up of a walking ankle boot and a blue jean leg

Both Richard and I survived decades – he nearly eight and me (halfway through six) – without a broken bone.  Now, both our medical histories include right foot fractures although different bones, five years apart but with the same hobbling.

My break was totally my fault as I focused on taking that perfect picture of the centuries old monastery, tucked high in the Moldovan hillside and visible across the deep valley; totally inattentive to the surface change from pavement to gravel with a drop significant enough to turn an ankle and (as discovered later) fracture a bone.  With the support of my travel companions, one of which was a Mayo orthopedic nurse, I preserved.  After all, what else is there to do 5,200 miles and eight time zones from home with a “transverse nondisplaced fracture at the distal aspect of the lateral malleolus”?

Fast forward from October 2018 to last week and a facture of Richard’s fifth metatarsal.  The loud thump had me running from our computer room at the back of the house to the front TV room.  At first, we both thought everything was just bruised, his left shoulder, elbow and hip and his right foot.  After three days, his left side soreness had noticeably diminished but his right foot was still quite swollen, and walking was painful.  Time for a Sunday morning visit to Acute Care.  He walked in wearing both shoes and, just like the Diddle, Diddle Dumpling nursery rhyme, he left the clinic with one shoe on and one shoe off, wearing instead a short ortho air-pump walking boot.  The doctor ordered a follow-up X-ray in four weeks to check progress. We anticipate he will be booted and hobbling for six to eight weeks.  This is one of those shared experiences I wish he could have missed.

Photo credit: Richard Hutton

Spirituality

“You Can Do This Hard Thing”

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Last month, I faced a hard task.  Hard, not in the sense of strenuous work or tough negotiations; not climbing a mountain or training for a marathon or anything else that could really be deemed difficult.  No, it was hard because I was not ready.  It was hard because I simply did not want to do it.  Likewise, my first attempt at this post was so “Wendy Whiner-ish” that I had to set it aside. I knew I needed an attitude adjustment. I just didn’t know when or from whom that inspiration might come. 

You can do this hard thing, 
You can do this hard thing
It's not easy I know but
I believe that it's so
You can do this hard thing.

When Richard received his Parkinson’s Disease (PD) diagnosis on July 23 last year, my first, librarian-like reaction was to dig into the research.  I relied on Mayo’s website for my introduction; I joined the Parkinson’s Foundation’s online community which generates lots of helpful emails on a regular schedule; I even downloaded the 174 page care-giver’s guide.  I think that is what stymied me.  I wanted the Cosmo version of a guide.  I wanted 10 easy steps to understanding a complicated, incurable disease or 10 easy strategies to supporting without smothering.  I did not want; I could not handle 174 pages.  I reverted to learning by osmosis – simply observing the changes I saw or listening to what Richard was discovering since he was doing the hard work of research.  I did give PD a new name.  In my head this progressive disorder that affects the nervous system became FD – that F*****g Disease.

Hearts hung like laundry
On backyard clothes lines
Impossible just takes
A little more time

This past weekend, I had the special privilege to spend time with Carrie Newcomer , a musican and songwriter the Boston Globe describes as a “prairie mystic.”  As I served as chauffeur between hotel and church, sat through a rehearsal and sound checks, enjoyed a concert and particpated in two Sunday morning services at which Carrie and her accompanist, Gary Waters, were the featured musicians, Carrie’s poignant stories, inspirational lyrics, and haunting melodies jumpstarted my attitude adjustment.  I felt I could step away from selfish introspective, from frustrated inability to “fix” the problem and into the simple acknowledgement that Richard and I will continue to adapt and manage.

Spirituality

Wide Arrival: Sunday Reflection

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two white row boats pulled up onto a shore line with tall green marshy grass and mist hanging in the air

A fundamental question was raised during last week’s sermon.  A question appropriate to living our individual lives as we continue to navigate the details of re-gathering amidst viruses and variants (and move into what is predicted to be a virulent flu season) and especially poignant for a welcoming congregation:

“How are we making a wide arrival?  Enough space for all our grief, our stories, our uncertainties; how to find passageways of life in this changed and changing world?”

Admittedly, in the Hutton household and, I am sure, at your house too in these nearly but not quite post-Covid days some tasks are easier to navigate than others.  Some days we find ourselves almost back to a routine that feels comfortable like a well-worn flannel shirt on a cool September day or going to church on Sunday morning.  But then we arrive in that sacred space and see smiling masked faces and we must admit it is the same but different. 

In the midst of these ambiguous days, Richard and I decided we would add more uncertainty to our daily life.  Since July, our house has been in some form of disarray due to three (count them – 3) renovation projects.  Just to be clear, all of the work has been undertaken by choice and not a crisis with our nearly 100 year old house – built in 1925 and moved in ’27.  All the work is being done so that we might continue to “age gracefully in place.”

Last Sunday’s homiletic imagery of drifting on the water, anchored, but with a shifting shoreline accurately described our days.  Carpenters arriving on a date set two months earlier – anchored.  Getting a call late Friday that the team of painters and plasterers would arrive early the next week – definitely felt like bobbing on choppy water as we scrambled to move all of the furniture from four rooms, take our eclectic collection of art off the walls, and remove all the electric faceplates.  

Knowing our renovations were close to completion but with more work still to be done, I arrived at church last Sunday and felt anchored as we poured our collected water tributes into the large blue bowl and music rang joyfully. Anchored again this morning seeing familiar faces and welcoming new members as we make “a wide arrival”.

Photo credit: iStock