Neri Livneh revealed she is dealing with Parkinson's: "It's time for me to come out of the closet"
The 73-year-old journalist described in her weekly column the period during which her health declined, the tests she underwent, and the moment she was diagnosed with the disease. Recently, she even tripped in the street and broke her shoulder — a fall that she says was related to the diagnosis. "I was ashamed of it, Parkinson's is a very unhappy holiday."
Journalist Neri Livneh, 73, revealed today (Thursday) that she is dealing with Parkinson's disease. In her weekly column in Haaretz, titled "Hello, I am Neri Livneh and I am a Parkinson's patient," she told how a wallet she lost and which was returned to her led her to reveal the disease, after she found in it her membership card for the Parkinson's Association.
"There were a few things in the wallet that give away life itself," Livneh wrote, "for example, an IDF disabled veteran certificate that I only bothered to get half a year ago because I was told it would entitle me to an exemption from the line at Ben Gurion Airport. In itself, it does not evoke any bad associations for people of my type. At most, they might mistake and think that I was an outstanding officer (and I wasn't, and I was even put on trial for losing a weapon — ADHD, we said), but what do they think when they see in my pink wallet a 'member of the Parkinson's Association' certificate? It is, if you didn't know, a not-so-sought-after ticket to a club I never wanted to join," she explained.
"Many ask me how I knew I had Parkinson's, well, I didn't. Truth be told, I never gave this disease any special thought. In my own eyes, I was targeted for strokes or emphysema, both because I was a very heavy smoker and because these are the diseases from which my parents died. I stopped smoking so that my children wouldn't have to take care of me and so that I wouldn't get one of these diseases that I would bring upon myself. Two years after I stopped smoking, which to my astonishment did not improve my health condition but the opposite, I became very weak, exhausted even after 10 hours of sleep, and I lost the excellent sense of smell I had. I, who was always considered a brisk walker, suddenly started walking slowly. They told me I was hunched over, and that I spoke quietly. Two years after stopping smoking, I felt the worst I had ever felt."
Livneh further recounted that her son and his brother were very worried about her health condition, while she was busy in active denial. "I attributed all these troubles to stopping smoking." She went to doctors, underwent a catheterization, and at one stage even thought she was depressed, but the psychiatrist said: "You are not depressed, just down because of the situation and because you are sensitive."
"For about a year, I explained to the family doctor that I was exhausted. Once I told the cardiologist that I felt my legs were not carrying me. 'Then go to an orthopedist,' he said. The only one who claimed for two years that I had Parkinson's was my son Amitai. 'What Parkinson's in your head? I'm not shaking,' I told him. To his brothers and also to their father, he painted a very scary picture of my physical condition. Everyone put intense pressure on me, and in the end, two years after stopping smoking, I went to a neurologist."
"'Your son is very smart,' he said and gave me dopamine, which is the neurotransmitter that is missing for those who have Parkinson's. I remember the first time I took the pill. 'You straightened up suddenly, Mom,' my children said. The immediate reaction to the news was a feeling of failure. I felt, and to a large extent I still feel a bit now, that I failed, even though there is no meaning to failure in this matter. I was ashamed of myself. I felt like a flawed woman. My children and my good friends did know what it was about, but at my request, they kept a 'fog of war.' I didn't want to be a Parkinson's model, and I feared pity the most."
"Quite quickly, I realized that my perception of Parkinson's is very stereotypical. I met sick women who are 20 years younger than me and work full-time, take care of children, travel abroad. None of them shook. I met men my age or older than me who, if I hadn't known they had come like me to Neurodance classes (dance physiotherapy for Parkinson's patients), I wouldn't have guessed they had anything. The people I met were so nice that I started to suspect that maybe there is some correlation between Parkinson's and intelligence and a sense of humor."
"Last week, Amitai wrote to me that the 83-year-old singer Carly Simon announced she has Parkinson's. 'Yes,' I wrote with clumsy sarcasm, 'only the best are accepted into this disease,' and there is even a grain of truth in it. But I still continued to be ashamed that I have Parkinson's. The first time my Facebook readers could understand what it was about was when I had to give my dog Bar to another home, because I fell and broke my shoulder. Some of you know this, but what I haven't told until now is that my strange fall on the sidewalk on Uhlandstrasse in Berlin was a result of Parkinson's. Falls are a symptom of Parkinson's."
At the end of her words, she summarized: "Parkinson's is a very unhappy holiday, a holiday of stumbling and falling. For several weeks I have been planning to tell you. All the years that I have been writing to you, I have imposed on myself not only to tell the truth, but also the whole truth. I decided that it is time for me to come out of the closet."
