Riding Shotgun

The past few days I’ve been helping a friend. She doesn’t have a car and her daughter has lost the vision in one eye. So we’ve been trekking to the doctor for exams and intravenous steroids.

I sit in the car and wait. Something I am used to, as I did it quite frequently with my husband, Fred. It wasn’t just doctor’s appointments, but I would sometimes tag along groundhog hunting with him. Lots of fun memories. He had a permit to hunt from his truck on account of his Parkinson’s.

He would set up his sand bags on top of the cab of his pickup truck and hunker down, waiting for the vermin to pop its head up. When he tapped on the cab, it was my queue to put on the earmuffs. I always brought my laptop along and actually did some of my best writing on those trips. Today seems like old times.

It got interesting when customers would call, as when you are in business you always answer the phone. At least that was what I was taught. I’d yell out, “Hey babe, I gotta take this call.” I knew it was a 50/50 chance he didn’t hear me. So I would pray that I wouldn’t have to explain to anyone, what that loud bang was.

One thing that gained me high praise among his friends was goose hunting requests. This happened either at some ungodly hour of the morning, or in the evenings.

Fred had a group of friends that would take him goose hunting. They adored him. Fred always knew how to win people over. He would show up with a Tupperware full of homemade cookies for the guys. If that didn’t get them, his sheer determination to not let the Parkinson’s stop him did.

It all started one day when a young man came to the door and a young lady (me) answered. He said, “Ma’am my name is Jeff and I’d like to know if it might be ok to goose hunt out here on the property.” I replied, “My boyfriend’s away. You’ll have to come back next week and ask him.”

The next week Jeff came back and Fred answered the door. Jeff said, “Sir I was here last week and a young lady told me I’d have to come back and talk to her boyfriend. Is he here?” I could see the smirk on Fred’s face as he replied, “Young lady huh? I’m her boyfriend.” As Jeff shared with me this story years later, he remembers thinking, I have to hang out with this guy. Jeff posed his question to Fred and he said, “On one condition. You take me with you.” It was a match made in heaven.

The guys took Fred under their wing. As they got to know him, they began to learn about his magical powers. They would marvel at how he would call me at way-too-early o’clock in the morning with an ask. He’d tell me where they were hunting, but that the geese landed in the next field over. Could I go scare them over in their direction. They were astonished that I would do this. They had yet to discover that Fred did not take no for an answer. The quicker I said yes, the quicker I could get back to bed.

Fred collected quite an array of goose decoys, from silhouettes to real (expensive) looking bobble heads, as I referred to them. He had them all organized by type in a trailer. He built shelves with holes that he could slip the peg legs of the decoys into.

A couple times he was hunting by himself, so I went along to help set up the goose decoys. This meant getting up even earlier, as it took a good 40 minutes to set up the decoys. They all needed to be set up before the geese woke up and started their hunt for food. That’s all I care to share about these 4:30 am episodes. The pain is too unbearable. But these are the types of things you do for love.

I have another friend who is going through a difficult health situation with his wife. There are emotions involved and as he describes what is going on, I am reminded of my role as a caregiver.

For me it started way before I recited wedding vows. Fred was diagnosed with Parkinson’s about 6 years before we got married. Truthfully he must have said a thousand times he was never getting married again. Imagine my surprise when he just said one day, out of the blue, we should get married. Marriage vows are a pretty serious commitment. It took me years to finally be able to engage in a ceremony where they were recited. In that ceremony I gladly agreed to them. But the dirty little secret was, I had already agreed to them years prior.

I don’t remember the first time he mentioned marriage but it was some time after the diagnosis. When someone you love is given a diagnosis, it is often times a diagnosis for you as well. Fred generally dealt with everything life could dish out with relative ease. You can read more about him here.

Doctors say you have about a 5 year honeymoon period with the Parkinson’s medicine, and then it stops working. Oddly enough, Fred took up paragliding the same year he was diagnosed with the disease. Most people would have just given up. But not Fred. He was known as 5 minute Fred, as he would never sit still for very long. He always had to be doing something. So I guess he figured from then on he was going to cram as much as he could in, before he couldn’t any more.

I actually suspected Fred had Parkinson’s before we discussed it. He was a hot air balloon pilot and I would notice when putting the balloon together to fly, there was a hesitation when he went to twist the gate of the carabiner closed. He suspected it too, as his father also had Parkinson’s. His father got it when he was pretty old. Fred was only 58 at the time. It was most likely brought on by Agent Orange he was constantly exposed to as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam.

When he finally was diagnosed, the doctors put him on several medicines, with bad side effects. One of them was depression. Fred wasn’t having any of that. One of the best things you can do for Parkinson’s is to stay active and that is exactly what he did.

The Parkinson’s had other effects. He was slow. He moved very methodically, and even when asked a question, he had to think about it for quite a bit longer, before he would answer. He took up new hobbies like welding, playing backgammon online or doing Sudoku and other mind puzzles, to stay sharp and practice small motor skills.

As frustrating as it was for him to not be able to do things like before, he stayed positive. That is where I played a very important role. The way I looked at it was I had the disease with him. We had Parkinson’s together. Although I had a much milder case.

As painful as it was to see Fred struggle with simple things, I needed to be there for him in a way that helped him keep his dignity. Parkinson’s can be a brutal, humiliating disease. As much as Fred tried to stay positive, the reality was, it was frustrating for him to not be able to eat like a slob, or wonder if he was going to swallow wrong and cough up a storm at a restaurant. He was obsessed with being clean shaven, and self conscious about being quiet in a group or not being able to talk loud enough to even get in the conversation. These are just a few things.

Fred was always a patient man. I know, because I required a lot of patience for the first years of our relationship. Anyone else and I would have been a goner. He showed me how to be patient with people. Little did I know it would be the most valuable thing he could have taught me. The Parkinson’s tested his patience in many ways. But what he taught me in patience, I was able to give back to him. When he would try to accomplish some little task, he would keep at it until he either got it, or had to ask for help. He didn’t like asking for help. Does anyone? But by him teaching me patience, I was able to exhibit it with him. I can’t tell you the number of times I waited and watched him do something, that I could have done in an instant. It took everything I had not to jump in and do it for him. And when he would finally ask for help I would purposefully move slow, to deliberately show him it was not a big deal helping, nor was the task important enough to give it my best effort. I along with him, was in no hurry.

I had a superpower of my own. It’s a secret, so don’t tell anyone. I have Xray vision. When I met Fred he was much older than me, had lost most of his hair, was silenced by his first wife and despised by his employees. But I, with my Xray vision, was able to look past all those exterior visuals and influences, and see the real Fred.

It’s hard to explain what we had. But I know what we had doesn’t even come once in a lifetime for everyone. Trials can make or break even the strongest of relationships though. The key is keep as positive as possible. If you are in a similar situation, get your Xray vision and your patience out. You are going to need both. Throw in a sense of humor too.

I especially think of all the caregivers out there today, Veterans Day. Life can be tough, but there is nothing like having someone to ride shotgun with you. You’re on the journey together and together you will get to where you need to be.