Fear: The Call to Adventure

by Susan Scarlett

The feeling of sadness about living with Parkinson’s is a heavy woven blanket. It weighs down on me, reminding me that it’s not just a Parkinson’s blanket, it’s a cancer blanket too. Between the two medical realities, the blanket sometimes warms and comforts me; other times, the warp and weft of the weave cover me with pain and sadness.  

After having been cancer-free for more than 20 years, my emotions surrounding the discovery of yet another cancer were off the charts. Now living with a degenerative neurologic disease, one which currently has no cure – Parkinson’s – is bad enough.  Adding cancer, a massive surgery, and intractable post-mastectomy pain fills me with frustration, fear, anger, and sadness.  

Three years later, I have pain every day. Is Parkinson's complicating post-op healing? Who knows? The breast surgeon, the pain specialist, the acupuncturist, and the physical therapist all eventually handed my heavy blanket back to me, not knowing what else to do with their now-diagnosed Post-Mastectomy Pain Syndrome. Yes we got rid of the cancer, and I am immensely relieved about that. Parkinson’s is still lurking, though, and I am reminded of it daily when the post-op pain hits. 

Is it a tightening of adhesions? Is it spasm? Yes, and probably other physiologic events as well. The truth is, no one knows. All I know is that Parkinson’s does not yet have a cure, and so every experience of pain is accompanied by sadness, anger, and fear, even if it’s caused by a surgery which eliminated cancer. 

These two diagnoses are inextricably woven together in me. I feel sadness in this pain, and I cannot isolate it from fear, frustration, and sometimes even anger. I am learning that emotions interconnect and reinforce each other, just like the weave of a blanket.