my friend calls it “a little ray of light” …that little sliver that reminds me of the lessons to be learned, and the wonders and miracles that are before us everyday – my father called me yesterday with a little giggle in his voice, “mommy’s talking!…listen…she can talk!…she wants to say ‘hello’…and that’s how my day began.
miracle, after miracle. i don’t know what transpired over night, but i think it must be the effects of her new pain medication. parkinsons is such a mysterious disease, but one of the more difficult and saddening, almost inevitable result is the patient’s eventual loss of her ability to speak. it’s a slow, and wicked process. at first the voice diminishes to a whisper, and then it turns to garble, until finally it’s just the eyes and the lips moving with no sound, and you standing there trying your best to guess what she’s trying to say. in many ways, my mother’s world has been getting smaller and smaller every day to the point where she probably feels invisible or trapped in many ways 😦
yesterday was a very special day for her, and for us. it was as if we had a visitor from our past…someone so familiar and wonderful coming to stay and play. she had so much to say! she wanted to call all her friends from her past who she’s lost touch with because she hasn’t had a voice, people who probably missed her too but who had slowly stopped calling because they had lost their hearing – the combination of no hearing at one end, and no ability to talk at the other end, is just not a working conversation!
since vocal cords are surrounded by muscles, and since the muscles in parkinsons stiffen, i’m thinking that the pain killer somehow relaxed her muscles, reduced the inflammation, and then allowed the muscles to operate. this is just a guess and in the meantime we’re just enjoying the music of my mom’s voice, the sound that was becoming a distant memory.
the other miracle is that i think i found a lovely woman to help in the afternoons. my mom and dad liked her right away, the hours worked perfectly for her. she had a grandmother who suffered from parkinsons, and then she nursed a woman for five years who also struggled with the disease…as life unfolds, we see the blessings, and i’m filled with gratitude.
