What I Want for Christmas
If I could have whatever I want for Christmas,
This is what I’d do…
I’d stomp, I’d scream, I’d kick, I’d yell,
Then I’d package up Parkinson’s
And send it straight to Hell.
I’d buy the nicest box
With the perfect red ribbon string,
And carefully place each piece of this disease I despise
In a box brimming with all the things.
Here in this pocket would go hallucinations,
Over there in that corner delusions,
Don’t forget tremors and incontinence too.
All the difficulty walking, wrapped up in the prettiest paper,
And then sent down straight to you.
Keep the gift forever,
Don’t dare try to send it to us.
You can have all the medicine and the walkers and the wheelchairs
Or I’ll keep kicking up a fuss.
We are tired of all this extra,
So don’t be surprised to find an enormous stack.
We are boxing up Parkinson’s this year,
And we never want it back.
If I could have whatever I want for Christmas,
This is really what I’d do.
I’d stomp, I’d scream, I’d kick, I’d yell,
Then I’d package up Parkinson’s
And send it straight to Hell.
Parkinson’s Disease
Parkinson’s disease occurs as a result of brain cells that stop working or completely die instead of producing dopamine as they are supposed to do. This is a progressive disease. There is no cure. Parkinson’s is described as a “lifelong” disease. Some people live with it for more than 20 years, forced to deal with a wide range of debilitating symptoms for a very long time.
The Michael J. Fox Foundation estimates that “nearly 1 million people in the United States and more than 6 million people worldwide” have Parkinson’s. The disease is elusive; it seems to be caused by environmental and genetic factors but many people have no experiences that suggest they should have gotten Parkinson’s. The average age of diagnosis is 60, but some people develop the disease as young as their 30’s.
There is Hope
There is hope – last year a biomarker was discovered for the disease. It’s called the “alpha-synuclein seeding amplification assay.” For the first time ever, a test can diagnose Parkinson’s even before symptoms are occurring. This is so important because it takes some people years to be diagnosed and many are diagnosed incorrectly. My mom, for example, had always been perfectly healthy and we were told that she had had a stroke as the explanation for why she couldn’t walk. She never had a stroke; it was Parkinson’s disease.
I remember my mom’s Neurologist/Movement Disorder Specialist telling us that there had been no new Parkinson’s medications developed since the 70’s. Thank God that has changed – 7 new drugs have now come to market although they do not work for every patient. There is progress. There is hope. But, this year, all I want for Christmas is to box it up and let it go. If only it was that simple.
