Category Archives: Caregiving – General

The Northwest Parkinson’s Foundation (nwpf.org) has a community blog. Recently a blogger named Pete Beidler reviewed a book by Jolyon Hallows titled “A Parkinson’s Life and a Caregiver’s Roadmap.” In the book, Jolyon describes his journey with his wife Sandra, who lived with Parkinson’s Disease for 20 years. The third part of the book is focused on caregiving.

The reviewer describes the third part this way: it “draws from Hallows’ own experience to give to other caregivers advice about what he calls the three dimensions of caregiving: the physical, the structural, and the emotional. I recommend the book for readers who want to know the gritty details of what probably lies ahead for them: the inevitable decline, the end of driving, the bedside commode, the in-bed sponge bath, the dressing, the legal decisions, the end-of-life decisions, and so on. … Hallows says that among the lessons he has learned in confronting Parkinson’s is that it is good to seek humor in dealing with situations that are not in themselves funny: ‘laughter is not disrespectful’.”

You might enjoy reading this book. If you do, please share what you learned. And consider donating the used book to our local support group’s lending library.

Robin

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nwpf.org/stay-informed/blog/pete-beidler-reviews-jolyon-hallows-a-parkinsons-life/

Northwest Parkinson’s Foundation
PD Community Blog, May 17, 2018
Pete Beidler Reviews “A Parkinson’s Life”

A Parkinson’s Life and a Caregiver’s Roadmap, by Jolyon E. Hallows. Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada: WCS Publishing, 2018. 225 pp.

In his Afterword to “A Parkinson’s Life and a Caregiver’s Roadmap,” Jolyon Hallows confesses to a certain uncertainty of purpose: “When I started writing this book, my motivations were unclear. It seemed important to me, but I wasn’t sure why” (185). By the end he seems to have found clarity of purpose. He wanted his readers to know what a Parkinson’s marriage is really like, both for the one with the disease and for the caregiving spouse.

Hallows divides his book into three parts. Part I, Prelude, gives the history of the author’s and his wife Sandra’s life together before she receives her diagnosis, and it describes the basic facts about Parkinson’s disease and the various treatment options for people who have it. Part II, Living with Parkinson’s, gives a mostly chronological account of the progression of Sandra’s disease and her husband’s increasingly desperate efforts to care for her. Part III, Caregiving, draws from Hallows’ own experience to give to other caregivers advice about what he calls the three dimensions of caregiving: the physical, the structural, and the emotional. I recommend the book for readers who want to know the gritty details of what probably lies ahead for them: the inevitable decline, the end of driving, the bedside commode, the in-bed sponge bath, the dressing, the legal decisions, the end-of-life decisions, and so on.

Hallows is an excellent writer. He has a rare gift for explaining complicated concepts in simple language. What does a dopamine neuron do? Hallows explains it this way:

“Let’s say you pass a storefront in the mall and you see something in the window that interests you. Do you go into the store to examine it or do you move on? It all depends. Do you have the money? Is there someone waiting for you at the coffee shop? Are you in a hurry? Do you really need, or want, whatever this is? The evaluation of each alternative—to go into the store or to move on—is one of the things the dopamine neurons provide. They help us choose.

But what happens when the signals fail? In that case, there’s nothing to tell the brain what to do. So, lacking direction, it does the logical thing—it freezes,” (19–20).

Why can’t we get artificial dopamine into the brain to replace the natural dopamine that the brain has stopped making? Hallows elaborates:

“The brain is persnickety. It doesn’t tolerate some of the stuff the bloodstream carries, so it’s protected by something called the ‘blood-brain barrier,’ which acts like a security guard in an exclusive gated community, keeping out the riffraff. Among the many substances that can’t cross the barrier is dopamine. You can take all of it you like, but none of it reaches your neurons. . . . Enter levodopa,” (32).

A Parkinson’s Life and a Caregiver’s Roadmap is not about malls, of course, or coffee shops, or gated communities, or riffraff, but Hallows uses these familiar concepts to help us to understand unfamiliar terms like dopamine neurons, blood-brain barriers, and freezing.

One of the attractive features of Hallows’s writing is his sense of humor. When he introduces levodopa, for example, he quips, “No, levodopa is not curt advice to someone married to a dullard” (32). Get it, leave-a-dope? Another example: when Hallows’s wife Sandra has deep brain stimulation surgery, he has to learn how to use the control stimulator: “I showed the stimulator to Sandra’s sister Vivian and boasted I could now turn Sandra on and off. She said it was a sorry excuse for a man who needed an electronic device to turn his wife on,” (78). Toward the end of the book Hallows says that among the lessons he has learned in confronting Parkinson’s is that it is good to seek humor in dealing with situations that are not in themselves funny: “laughter is not disrespectful” (183).

One of the most striking features of “A Parkinson’s Life and a Caregiver’s Roadmap” is its honesty. Sandra lives for more than two decades after her initial diagnosis. During those decades she grows less and less able to do the things she had always enjoyed: her work as a nurse, her driving, her ability to travel, her ability to take care of herself, her independence. It would perhaps have been possible for Hallows to report Sandra’s losses in positive terms as gains in love or devotion or knowledge or humility, but Hallows does not do that.

He focuses squarely on the disabling features of the disease: “In the final stage of the disease, the person is bedridden and needs help in all areas of his or her life including getting dressed, eating, and personal hygiene” (26). Hallows tells us that he has to brush Sandra’s teeth, help her get on and off the portable bedside commode, wipe her, give her sponge baths in bed, help her put her panties and bra on, and so on. Nor does he sugarcoat the unpleasantness of the disease for both of them by promising a cure: “Parkinson’s is far more complex than researchers had suspected and. . . . it will be a long time before there’s a cure on the horizon” (20). Furthermore: “This prolonged research is expensive—one source cites over a billion dollars and ten to twelve years to bring a new treatment to market. . . . So even if researchers find a real cure, it will take years to prove it” (28).

The medications and surgeries that are now available have helped many Parkinson’s patients, but they can help for only so long: “Medications have given generations of Parkinson’s patients extended time and a better quality of life, but there’s only so much they can do in the face of the disease’s inexorable progress,” (34). When Sandra dies, Hallows tells readers that “Sandra put up a valiant fight against her Parkinson’s. But it’s not a fight anyone ever wins” (181).

Should you read this book? That depends. If you want to know the grim facts about what probably lies ahead for people with Parkinson’s and for those whose lot it is to care for them, “A Parkinson’s Life and a Caregiver’s Roadmap” is a good choice. If you remember always that Parkinson’s follows a different trajectory for each person and that no single “roadmap” will work for all caregivers, then Hallows’ book can help you to anticipate and plan ahead for some of what probably lies in front of you. As you come to terms with the disease and with its almost inevitable downward progression, you may find solace in learning from this book that you are not alone.

Pete Beidler has read and reviewed many books about Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson Pete’s Bookshelves: Reviews of Eighty-Nine Books about Parkinson’s Disease (Coffeetown Press, 2018, ISBN 978-1-60381-746-2) can be purchased here.