Realizing a Life Long Dream Despite Parkinson's Disease
By Steve Witebsky
One of my dreams and goals has always been to write a children’s book. As I was approaching seventy it looked like that wasn’t going to happen. Little did I know that our annual family retreat was going to be instrumental in my finally getting around to that book.
My grandfather, Nate Witebsky, started Nate’s Clothing back in 1916. My father took over the business in the late 1950s and relocated the store to Fourth Street and First Avenue where the business grew substantially. My brother Alan and I started working there full time in the mid 1970s and eventually ran the business when our father began his retirement in the early 1990s. The store’s business model was predicated on a high volume of clothing sales, and seeing the trend of a more casual work environment, we wisely closed Nate’s Clothing at the end of 2008.
At that time I started what I thought was going to be an early retirement. After five months my astute wife, Judy, said I had to get a job because I was driving her crazy. I went to Von Maur Department Store where over the next seven years I managed several departments before officially retiring. With over forty years in the retail business, I learned to be an optimist. You just know the next day is going to be even better than the last.
Four years before retiring I started seeing a neurologist because of a tic in my left leg which he attributed to an essential tremor. Each year I visited the doctor, as the tic gradually increased in volume and slowly went to my left hand, he ended each check up saying, “…and don’t worry, it’s not Parkinson’s disease.” Eight months after my “official retirement” in December 2016, the neurologist said that he thought I should see a colleague of his who specialized in movement disorders. In less than five minutes the specialist declared that yes, it was Parkinson’s.
Both Judy and I thought we had to get a second opinion after a life shattering diagnosis like that. We called Struthers Parkinson’s Center in Golden Valley and were lucky enough to get an appointment with Dr. Martha Nance, the medical director of the center. Struthers Parkinson’s Center takes a team approach where all aspects of living with Parkinson’s disease are handled at their location. After Dr. Nance’s confirmation that I indeed had Parkinson’s, Judy and I met with speech, occupational, rehabilitation and physical therapists along with a social worker who encouraged us to come to monthly meetings about living with Parkinson’s disease.
How was I going to tolerate and endure the rest of my life knowing that at some point I might not be able to walk or even stand by myself and might develop cognitive and mental health issues? This is where that forty years of retail sales optimism was truly valuable. I vowed that although I had Parkinson’s disease, Parkinson’s disease did not have me!
In the past seven years since that fateful diagnosis I have volunteered at the West Health urgent care/emergency room and taken many world wide vacations with Judy. I am the current chair of the Struthers Parkinson’s Center Community Advisory Board and volunteer at many of their events they sponsor every year. We go up north to a large cabin for an annual family retreat, and in the past month Judy and I and our Bet Shalom friends, Rita and Ron Kelner, volunteered in Israel for two weeks. Is it hard for me? Yeah, it’s sometimes damn hard! It’s like that old Sonny and Cher song, The Beat Goes On, with my left hand bouncing around like a hard rock drummer.
A few years back, my youngest grandson, Bodhi, who was then four, decided he wanted to lead us from the cabin to the beach front. At the retreat everyone saw the effects of my Parkinson’s disease, at my best and at my worst. Well there was Bodhi innocently leading everyone down to the lake with his left hand exaggeratedly shaking back and forth. It was so cute that everyone started laughing!
A few weeks later I had another appointment with Dr. Nance. I told her the story of Bodhi, noting that it was kind of sad but kind of funny. She agreed and said that about ten years ago she wrote a manuscript for a book about a grandfather with Parkinson’s disease and his young grandson who found ways to help Grandpa live with his symptoms. It was titled, Grandpa Used to Drive Big Trucks. She asked if I would like to read a copy to Bodhi and see what he thought. Dr. Nance gave me a copy from her computer and I took it home to read.
The book had a very nice story line and of course the description of Parkinson’s symptoms were perfect, but as I wrote to her, “It needs a little literary magic.” Writing has always been my hobby, so I asked her if she minded if I played with it a little and see what she thought. I told her that she was under no obligation to me for my time with her book. Six months later after rewriting the book over a dozen times while staying close to the original story line, I presented the finished copy to Dr. Nance. She loved it so much she wanted me to be considered the coauthor and see if we could get it published.
The book was turned down by the first publisher saying it didn’t quite fit their niche of children’s books. However, the second publisher we presented it to, Wise Ink Media, thought it was perfect with their philosophy of publishing stories that uplift, inspire and inform.
It is a book that lovingly shows the relationship between a grandfather and his grandson while helping young children disperse the anxieties of viewing some of the disease’s symptoms. Grandpa Used to Drive Big Trucks is now available on Amazon.