Early
It’s early in the morning, and I’m at Baylor Scott & White Rehab going through the exercises my physical therapist (PT) has prescribed. She and I have been working together for several weeks as I try to strengthen my glutes, loosen my IT band, and fend-off the episodic pain in my left knee. When you get a Parkinson’s diagnosis, your doctors stress the importance of having a PT on your care team. Yes, for most of us, it takes a team of health care providers, or it will, to maintain our quality of life—to keep us moving, sleeping, speaking, and functioning in the ways that any human desires and most take for granted.
My focus is training for a marathon, which is still several weeks out. Exercise remains my Parkinson’s drug of choice.
I engage in the movements that the exercise requires, with my glutes on fire and my core engaged, rep after rep, set after set. A woman about my age works with a different PT doing neck exercises, while an older man rehabs his freshly replaced knee.
“We’ll have you ready,” my PT says.
I smile and keep going.
“You’re doing great,” she says, “getting stronger.”
I pause between sets.
“Actually, I wonder if I should just ease up and forego this race,” I say.
She gives me a slow half nod.
“I mean, I could push it out to the fall,” I say.
She takes a couple of steps in my direction, looks at me, her kindness balanced by candor, and says, “I don’t know how long you’ll be able to run marathons, Allan, let’s try to get you ready for this one.”
Later
“How did it get so late so soon?” None other than Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Suess, gets credit for asking this question. It reminds me of similar questions and statements. Where does the time go? Time is precious. You blink and it’s over. The days are long but the years are short. Time flies. How did it get so late so soon?
In graduate school, I became aware that, in one sense, all of us have the same amount of time in a given day. We all have 24 hours to make use of, and we make choices on how we use our time that reflect necessity and need, but also desire and joy. On the other hand, those of us who live with more privilege, financial and otherwise, often have more free time at our disposal than those who live with less. Working two or three jobs leaves you with less time for other things than working one job typically does.
Watching the Time
Having Parkinson’s tempts you to become a timekeeper if not a clock-watcher. You become more aware of time and you think about it more often than before. There’s the time between visits with your neurologist, which comes with gauging your disease progression. There’s the time between your doses of medicine, which you learn to make precise in order to optimize your functioning. There’s the time you hope you have to keep working, to stay active with your children or grandchildren, to live your life with time on your side. There’s also the time you’ve wasted: on worry, anger, envy, and regret. In the words of the ancient philosopher, Seneca, “It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.” [1]
Parkinson’s enhances this awareness, too. As Muhamad Ali, who also lived with Parkinson’s, urged, “Don’t count the days. Make the days count.”
Not long after my PT’s sobering reminder, former NBA icon Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash, along with his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven others. Bryant was just 41, and hitting his stride in life after basketball. Then, my close friend learned that his cancer was inoperable; and over 500 people have died from the coronavirus, with tens of thousands infected and no end in sight.
How did it get so late so soon?
It turns out that I might not get to run this marathon after all. Nagging injuries make it painful to push through the miles. My knee seems ok; my right foot, not so much. Plantar fasciitis? A stress fracture? My doctor will tell me in a couple of days, when I see her. Whatever happens, I will remain grateful for my physical therapist’s gentle reminder of the importance of making the days count.
Every single one of them.
__________
[1] Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, trans. C. D. N. Costa (New York: Penguin, 1997), 1.
Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash
Allan Cole is a professor in The Steve Hicks School of Social Work at The University of Texas at Austin and, by courtesy, professor of psychiatry in the Dell Medical School. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2016, at the age of 48, he serves on the Board of Directors at Power for Parkinson’s, a non-profit organization that provides free exercise, dance, and singing classes for people living with Parkinson’s disease in Central Texas, and globally via instructional videos. He also serves as a Community Advocate for ParkinsonsDisease.net, writing columns about living well with Parkinson’s. He is author or editor of 10 books on a range of topics related to bereavement, anxiety, and spirituality. Currently, he is writing a book on counseling people with Parkinson’s disease, which will be published by Oxford University Press.
Follow him on Twitter: @PDWise