Canadian Literature: Parkinson Perspective

I have a great story to tell you. A medical story. Sure, boo. Patients voices can be shrouded, particularly when clarity of thought may not be present. This is not to target any particular physician, but merely react to a situation in my own life, and share how dishonouring a person’s journey (health or otherwise) can become common practice quite easily, and lead to a sort of evil.

What is it like to have your thoughts all muddled that you lose your own perspective? Most individuals have experienced this occasionally – a blood rush when standing up too quickly, seeings stars. This temporary detachment from your body where you barely feel alive and can feel yourself breathing. Lasts only a second.

Some people experience this on a daily basis, and it is quite constant in nature. Technical words such a hypovolemia, neurocardiogenic syncope, tachycardia are tossed around, but this does not illustrate the sheer terror an individual feels when these events occur. Or when a physician explains that they do not know why a person’s neurological workings are not regulating blood pressure and heart rate in a way that most people take for granted (*cough cough, biological theory on homeostasis).

“I can make anyone faint. Your medication is working, you’re not fainting all over the place. Plop, plop, plop. Stop being so pessimistic.”

As pessimism causes illness, fatigue, and fainting, so one should not feel emotions. Yes, let’s encourage people to ignore negative emotions when they are struggling on a daily basis for basic clarity of thought. What am I writing about again? (I kid).

Insert feminist discussion on fainting and its roots in hysteria. Perhaps more interesting is how originally dysautonomia was known as neurasthenia (imbalance of the autonomic nervous system), then got downgraded at the turn of the 20th century to be known as hysteria (also around the time of twilight sleep) and only at the turn of another century (the 21st), is dysautonomia recognised as an illness that effects 1 in 100 people.

How do we speak for those who lose their train of thought? When the good days are up and down, or the minutes of the day are so topsy turvy? Is there a way to properly advocate for oneself under these circumstances in a medical environment that is so quick to jump to blaming the ‘patient’ for their lifestyle, as the medical reasonings are not yet founded to explain the physiological process that is occurring? How do we work with the layers of a complicated process such as the human body, when we don’t know the whole story of how each individual operates? When we fail to listen to the voices of those we should honour while we try to aid them?

Maybe it is turtles all the way down.

I’ve reiterated this story to family members and my partner. With each telling, the tears and rage come through in different ways. One thing I find is that forgiveness for myself and medical professionals increases with each telling.

Here is a fainting goat for your viewing pleasure:

Works Cited: 

Farmer, A. et al. “Neuraesthenia Revisited: ICD-10 And DSM-III-R Psychiatric Syndromes In Chronic Fatigue Patients And Comparison Subjects”. The British Journal of Psychiatry 167.4 (1995): 503-506. Web.

MIT + K12,. Homeostasis. 2013. Web.

The Goat Guide,. Fainting Goat. 2015. Web.

“Twilight Sleep & Childbirth And Feminism”. Tiny Cat Pants. N.p., 2007. Web.