Weird symptoms, a difficult period of life … and the announcement falls, “very violent”. Meeting with Cécile Parès, suffering from Parkinson’s disease for 12 years.
Cécile works, she is married, has a daughter. His life looks like that of many people until the arrival of symptoms “bizarre”. “I didn’t understand where it came from” she explains to us. She feels tired, “It is an enormous, incomprehensible fatigue, which does not pass” then shoulder pain occurs “Especially when I was driving for a long time, it was like a painful point”. She consults her general practitioner who does not understand the origin of her chronic fatigue, “He told me to get off, to take vitamin C and that it would be better”. A tremor begins. “It was a small tremor of the finger of my left hand, on the same side as the tension that I felt in the shoulder. This tremor spread to the whole hand over a few months and became more and more frequent.”
His general practitioner sends him to consult a neurologist. “It was a period of my very intense life at the emotional level and at work which did not arrange my state. Parkinson is a fairly strange disease that worsens a lot with stress and emotions. Parkinsonians are hypersensitive.” The neurologist talks to him about a “Parkinsonian syndrome”, Without pronouncing the term “disease”. She does not hang with this practitioner and consults a second one, a neurologist expert in Parkinson’s disease. The diagnosis falls: “He watches me walk and says” indeed you have a Parkinson disease “”. Cécile is 48 years old. The announcement is “Very violent and steep, we are told that as if we had a cold”. If his way of walking alerted the doctor it is because Parkinson’s disease is asymmetrical: “We have reached on one side at the start, the other side is later touched later, walking we no longer swing on the side where we are reached and it shows.”
“Symptoms fluctuate enormously depending on what’s going on around you”
The management of the disease begins. The neurologist prescribes a drug to him to imitate the effects of dopamine, the neurotransmitter who is missing because of Parkinson’s disease and which is involved in the control of movements. “I was lucky to have a” wise “parkinson for 10 years.” In parallel to her treatments, she moves. A lot. “I have always done sport. When I learned that I had this disease, I embarked on all the activities I could: walking, swimming … I also participated in a classical dance protocol for several months, reserved for Parkinson patients. It allowed me to resolve the dizziness I had at that time and which complicated my life very much.” All these physical activities “Steel the brain’s plasticity, neurons are agitated, it’s good for the disease”. Cécile continued to work full time until 2024.
Today, she is 60 years old and is half-time therapeutic. Twelve years after the start of her illness, she feels “Not that bad” But don’t hide being “Demoralized when a new symptom arrives”. Recently, blockages in his right arm have started, “I can no longer butter a tartine, answer an SMS, it’s scary”. Parkinson’s disease has many symptoms “Invisible” and disabilities: “For example, I can no longer put contact lenses because my eyes no longer make enough tear fluid.” To cope with symptoms “which fluctuate enormously according to what is happening around you”, Cécile helps alive medicine such as meditation, heart consistency and “A little homeopathy”in addition to his drugs.
Cécile also maintains her social relations, “It is important to be well surrounded and to find people with whom to talk to.” She joined an association for Parkinson patients even if the idea did not please her at the start: “During the first 9 years of my illness, I did not want to meet any parkinsonian. And then one day, I received information from France Parkinson and I saw that he proposed activities whose ping-pong at times that stuck with my work. I was doing small and it is a complete sport that makes you work with illness like the speed and repetition of movements.” Cécile appreciates these moments today “Without any judgment” with people who share the same illness as her, “It is a lot of good”.
Thank you to Cécile Parès for her testimony and to her daughter Iris with whom she shares her daily life on the Instagram Parki_Pote account
