The Gardener

As he idled the trimmer, I tried to ask the gardener to please trim the hedges. I remembered the blank look on his face from somewhere. It is the same look I get when I say anything about Parkinson’s beyond, “I have Parkinson’s.” Like when I say it is a degenerative disease in which most of the dopamine producing cells in my brain have died.  Blank stare. Try telling them about DBS. “To minimize my tremor, muscle rigidity and slowness of movement they implanted two wires into my subthalamic nucleus and attached them stimulator in my chest.” More blank stares.

You get the idea… it’s like we are speaking two different languages. The only exception to this if you say those magic words, “…Michael J. Fox.” All of a sudden their glazed over eyes become lucid and attentive, and my eyes glaze over. No, I do not know him. And according to his books, my treatment and course of the disease is different than his. Which always lead me and the rest of the Parkinson’s army to offer up the unhelpful cliche, “If you meet one person with Parkinson’s, you have met one person with Parkinson’s.” There is nothing like telling someone that one million other people in the U.S. have this disease but mine is special. Now both of us are staring blankly at each other…

Back to the gardener, having just asked him to trim the hedges he pulled off the noise suppressing headphones he was wearing and his blank stare turned into a questioning one. I repeated my request,and he replied, “Sure, I’ll get it next week.”