Illness, A Father and A Daughter
Yesterday I learned that my father, in addition to his Parkinson's Disease has a very troublesome rare disorder called Basilar Invagination. This disorder is when a piece of bone in the neck intrudes into the spinal cord and moves upward towards the brain. Although I knew that my father's recent bouts of falling could lead to something terrible and I did not expect this. The diagnosis got me think about illness and fathers. See as a child and for the first 15 years of my adult life I saw my father as SUPERMAN. A human being with tremendous strength, yet would do so quietly. For 36 years my father took care of my mother, who hade numerous illness including mental illness. He is one of my heroes. Always willing to help others. Always making sure that we went to great schools and lived in great neighborhoods. Even when I family was one foot from being homeless my father would travel far to work in temp jobs just to make sure we had a roof over our heads. Since...