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My dad has Parkinson's disease. Taking a trip with him one weekend taught me a lot.

brain, injury, disease, coordination
Image pulled from Pixabay.

Pakinson's disease causes unintended movements from a brain disorder affecting the nervous system.

"Watch him like a hawk. Take no excuses."

Those were some of my mom's last words to me as I set off with my dad for D.C. He hadn't been up north to see his own father, who is pushing 100, in over a year, and my dad's advanced Parkinson's disease made traveling alone impossible. So I was enlisted to go with him. For the first time, I'd be in charge of his medication, along with shepherding him through the airport, getting him in and out of bed — pretty much everything.

"You can't take him at his word," she'd tell me.


"Don't hand him his pills and walk away. He'll never take them. Don't leave him while he's brushing his teeth at night. He'll never make it to bed before the medicine knocks him out. Don't assume he's going to do what he says he's going to do."

"You have to watch him like a hawk," she said. "Take no excuses."

Maybe that's why it felt so good when I was finally able to text her, on our return trip, that we had made it through security and were almost at our gate.

My dad was in the bathroom while I leaned against the wall outside waiting for him. We were flying out of Reagan International, and in four days of travel, there were no emergencies. No crises. No disasters or catastrophes. There had been no medicine mix-ups, no missed doses, no falls, no accidents. Everything had been fine.

That's not to say it had gone easy, but at least it had gone. Though we weren't home yet.

Not quite anyway.

When my dad came out of the bathroom, we headed to the seating area in front of our gate. As we passed a small concession stand, awkwardly pitted in the middle of the room like a prize counter at an arcade, he mumbled something about being thirsty.

"A pink lemonade sounds good," he said. And he reached out and grabbed one from the cooler.

We had all of our bags on us. Him carrying one, me rolling the other with a duffel slung over its handle. I looked at the narrow, winding queue leading to the cashier and back down at our bulky bags as my dad slowly started to drift away from the concession stand, lemonade still in his grasp.

"Why don't we get settled over by the gate, put our bags down?" I said. "Then I'll come back over and get you something to drink."

With him, I had learned to think several steps ahead. I learned to scout obstacles and anticipate problems.

I learned enough to know that, with only one hand free, he'd have trouble getting his wallet out of his sweatpants, or he'd trip over his feet and tumble into the people in front of us, or he'd inadvertently shoplift this lemonade if I didn't take it and put it back.

But still, it felt awful to say something so patronizing to my own father.

He agreed that we should get settled and we made our way over to the gate, finally coming to a stop in front of a row of roomy handicapped seating.

"Dad, you want to sit here with the bags while I go get us a drink?"

"OK, sure."

He just stood there.

"Dad?"

He does this thing where he's always standing. He'll wander into a living room conversation where everyone's sitting, and he'll just stand in front of a seat and talk from there. You'll ask him if he wants to sit, and he'll bend his knees slightly but then pause, almost as if he's forgotten he was going to sit in the middle of doing it.

There's something unsettling about someone standing when you feel like they should be sitting.

"Dad, you want to just sit here for a minute while I get us a drink?"

On that, he plopped down and I positioned our bags so they'd be in his sight and reach.

"A muffin would be good, too," he added.

"OK. I'll see if they have muffins."

I turned and headed back to the concession stand. I couldn't have walked more than five or six steps before I glanced back over my shoulder at him. He was still sitting there. I don't know what I expected to see — like he was going to erupt in flames the moment he was out of my sight or something.

I got in line, and as I waited my turn, I kept looking back.

“Watch him like a hawk."

We hadn't come this far to have him fall down and break his wrist or have our bags stolen from under his nose.

We hadn't come this far without a disaster to have one now.

I paid for the lemonade and a blueberry muffin I spotted in the display case. And I looked back over at my dad again.

He was standing.

What is he doing? I wondered. Is he sifting through our bags? Is he going to wander off?

I hurried back over and found him contemplating our belongings. He was hoping to find a bag of sliced oranges we'd packed for the trip, trying to solve our luggage like it was some impossible puzzle.

I unzipped the outermost pocket of my suitcase and handed him the oranges, the lemonade, and the muffin.

We both sat down and he began to eat.

He attacked the muffin the way you might eat an apple — gripping it with the entire width of his hand and lifting it to his face for enormous bites. It crumbled as he mauled it, massive pieces tumbling over the wrapper and landing on him. All over his lap and his shirt and his seat and the seat between us.

He was not mortified, like I would have been if it were me.

He wasn't even affected.

Halfway through, he had clumps of muffin pinched precariously between his fingers. He was picking up stray blueberries off the seat and eating them.

People were staring. I wanted to help, to do something, but I didn't know what.

I had my phone to my ear now, working out the last minute details of our shuttle pickup. I had my other hand death-gripped around his pill case, which I was under strict orders to never let out of my sight.

As my dad gnawed his way further into the muffin's core, I noticed this older bald guy in a fleece jacket across from us stealing glances at the scene. I thought about telling him to mind his own business, but reconsidered given the absurdity of what was happening. I understood why he'd be compelled to look.

But I started to hate this random guy anyway.

There was nothing spectacular about him. He was bald with some prickly silver stubble covering his chin and an orange fleece pullover. He was just a guy, really.

But what stood out about this man, to me, was that he didn't have any food stains on his clothes.

He didn't have elastic shoelaces or drawstring pants. He didn't have hearing aids. He didn't have anyone with him to help him get on the plane without getting lost.

I started to hate him because I thought, this is who my dad was supposed to be.

My call finally ended and I hung up. At this point, I had seen enough of the muffin massacre and was ready to go get us a plate, some napkins, something. But I remembered I hadn't gotten us a preboarding pass yet and we'd be boarding any minute. My dad — not surprisingly — doesn't do well with people nipping at his heels, squeezing around him, crowding him, hurrying him. We needed to board before the rest of the passengers. It was one of the last obstacles between us and home.

At the ticketing desk, I kept glancing back as I talked to the agent.

“I'm traveling with my father who is, uh, he has… He's handicapped."

I never know how to describe it.

When it comes to Parkinson's, "handicapped" always seems to be both wildly conservative and entirely overly dramatic at the same time.

It doesn't come close to telling the whole story.

As we wrapped up the transaction at the counter, I caught my dad standing again from the corner of my eye.

Is he sifting through our bags? Is he going to wander off?"

As soon as I got our preboarding pass, I hurried back over to him.

He had, to my complete surprise, cleaned himself off pretty well with a stray napkin. He'd brushed the crumbs away from his shirt and pants. He'd wiped the seat clean, save for a few hangers-on in the crevice. And he had stuffed all the trash into the small white bag that the muffin came in.

In that moment, I got a glimpse of my dad. The real one.

The one who raised three kids and taught us how to throw a football, how to use a hammer, how to treat people. The one who, in another world, would have been leading me through the airport, reciting Civil War trivia as we walked. The one who, to an outsider, would have been just a guy.

The one who, to those who knew him, was far from just a guy.

He looked at me as I approached and said, "Are we ready to go home?"

For a second, it felt like we were already there.

We stood and waited to board, watching travelers deplane from the previous flight. We were mostly silent because no one ever wrote a handbook on how to ask your father if he's sure he doesn't need to use the restroom and then jump into shooting the shit about sports.

So it was easier to just say nothing.

But it was a comfortable silence. Maybe even a happy one. Because the catastrophe I had dreaded and been warned about and tried so hard to avoid, well, it ended up just being a particularly unwieldy muffin.

And all it took was a single napkin to wipe away any trace that anything had ever gone wrong.

If only for a second.

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Meet the 11 outstanding nonprofits that took home this year’s Classy Awards

Each organization has gone above and beyond to make our world a better place.

All images provided by the Classy Awards, used with permission

Give these organizations all the awards

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Since 2009, the Classy Awards have celebrated nonprofits for their unique approaches to making our world a better place for everyone. Winners are given a platform to amplify their cause and showcase the positive impact of their programs.

This year, we are proud to announce that the Classy Awards have partnered with Upworthy, and we are thrilled to shine a spotlight on the 2023 winners.

From championing gender equality, to massively reducing food waste, to providing trade-based skills training to the neurodivergent community, each organization has made an incredible contribution to the betterment of our world.

Collectively through their efforts, nearly 1.5 million people and animals were served across 34 countries worldwide last year alone. That’s a win in itself.

Check out the 11 winners for 2023 below:


​412 Food Rescue

1/11

In an effort to address the growing concern of food waste, hunger, and environmental sustainability, 412 Food Rescue uses an innovative app to match volunteers, aka Food Heroes, with other organizations that might have a surplus of perfectly good but unsellable food that would otherwise be wasted and redirect it to people who need it.

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Three women, three MS journeys: How multiple sclerosis looks different for everyone

Gina, Nathalie and Helga share their reactions to being diagnosed with MS and how they stay informed and positive in the face of ever-changing symptoms.

Courtesy of Sanofi

Helga, Nathalie and Gina all have MS, and their experiences show how differently the disease can manifest.

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It’s been 155 years since neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot gave the first lecture on a mysterious progressive illness he called “multiple sclerosis.” Since then, we’ve learned a lot. We know MS causes the immune system to attack healthy tissue, including damaging the brain and spinal cord. Resulting symptoms can be debilitating and include fatigue, blurred vision, memory problems and weakness. Huge advancements in our understanding of MS and its underlying causes, as well as treatment advances, have been made in the past few decades, but MS remains a complex and unpredictable reality for the 2.8 million+ people diagnosed around the world.

Ironically, the only real constant for people living with MS is change. There’s no set pattern or standard progression of the disease, so each person’s experience is unique. Some people with MS have mild symptoms that worsen slowly but sometimes improve, while others can have severe symptoms that drastically alter their daily lives.

All people with MS share some things in common, however, such as the need to stay informed on the ever-evolving research, find various lines of support and try to remain hopeful as they continue living with the disease.

To better understand what navigating life with MS really looks like, three women shared their MS stories with us. Their journeys demonstrate how MS can look different for different people and interestingly, how the language used to talk about the disease can greatly impact how people understand their realities.

woman with horse, woman riding horseGina loves riding her horse, Benita.Courtesy of Sanofi

Gina—Hamburg, Germany (diagnosed with relapsing multiple sclerosis in 2017)

When her youngest son was 4 months old, Gina started having problems with her eye. She’d soon learn she was experiencing optic neuritis—her first symptom of MS.

“Immediately after the diagnosis, I looked up facts on MS because I didn’t know anything about it,” Gina says. “And as soon as I knew what could really happen with this disease, I actually got scared.”

As her family’s primary income provider, she worried about how MS would impact her ability to work as a writer and editor. Her family was afraid she was going to end up in a wheelchair. However, for now, Gina’s MS is managed well enough that she still works full-time and is able to be active.

“When I tell somebody that I have MS, they often don't believe me the first time because I don't fulfill any stereotypes,” she says.

Overwhelmed by negative perspectives on living with MS, Gina sought support in the online MS community, which she found to be much more positive.

“I think it’s important to use as many positive words as you can when talking about MS.” It’s important to be realistic while also conveying hope, she says. “MS is an insidious disease that can cause many bad symptoms…that can be frightening, and you can't gloss over it, either.”

To give back to the online community that helped her so much, Gina started a blog to share her story and help others trying to learn about their diagnosis.

Though she deals with fatigue and cognitive dysfunction sometimes, Gina stays active swimming, biking, riding horses and playing with her sons, who are now 11 and 6.

Cognitive dysfunction is common in MS, with over half of people affected. It can impact memory, attention, planning, and word-finding. As with many aspects of MS, some people experience mild changes, while others face more challenges.

Gina says that while there’s still a lot of education about MS needed, she feels positive about the future of MS because there’s so much research being done.

woman in wheelchair holding medal, woman rowingNathalie is an award-winning rower with multiple international titles.Courtesy of Sanofi

Nathalie — Pennes Mirabeau, France (diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis in 2002)

Nathalie was a teenager and a competitive athlete when she noticed her first symptoms of MS, but it would take four years of “limbo” before she was diagnosed.

“Ultimately, the diagnosis was more of a relief, than a shock,” she says. “Because when you have signs and you don’t know why, it’s worse than knowing, in the end, what you have.”

However, learning more about the disease—and the realities of disease progression—scared her.

“That glimpse of the future was direct and traumatic,” she says. Her neurologist explained that the disease evolves differently for everyone, and her situation might end up being serious or very mild. So, she decided to stop comparing herself to others with MS.

She said to herself, “We’ll see what happens, and you’ll manage it bit by bit.”

By 2005, Nathalie’s MS had progressed to the point of needing a wheelchair. However, that has not dampened her competitive spirit.

Nathalie began her international rowing career in 2009 and has won multiple world titles, including two Paralympic medals—silver in London and bronze in Tokyo. Now, at 42, she still trains 11 times a week. Fatigue can be a problem, and sometimes hard workouts leave her with muscle stiffness and shaking, but she credits her ongoing sports career for helping her feel in tune with her body’s signals.

“Over the years, I’ve learned to listen to my body, letting my body guide when I need to stop and take breaks,” she says.

Nathalie explains that she used to only look backwards because of the initial shock of her diagnosis. In time, she stopped thinking about what she couldn’t do anymore and focused on her future. She now lives in the following mindset: “Even when doors close, don’t miss out on those that open.” Instead of focusing on what she can’t do, she focuses on the opportunities she still has. Right now, this includes her training for the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris, where she will compete for another rowing medal.

“I only go forward,” she says. “Well, I try, anyway…It’s easy to say, it’s not always easy to do. But that’s what I try to do.”

woman exiting water after swimming, woman with great daneHelga's Great Dane has become a helpful and beloved companion.Courtesy of Sanofi

Helga—Johannesburg, South Africa (diagnosed with relapsing multiple sclerosis in 2010)

When Helga first started having balance issues and numbness in her feet, she chalked it up to her training as a runner. But when the numbness moved to her face, she knew something was wrong. She never guessed it was MS.

“When I was diagnosed, I felt completely overwhelmed and clueless,” Helga says. “I felt that I had nowhere near enough information. I did not know anything about the disease…I had no idea that it was going to be a process of continually monitoring and adjusting your lifestyle.”

In the beginning, Helga’s symptoms developed slowly, and she didn’t appear ill to others. She was even able to run for a few years after her diagnosis, but she couldn’t do marathons anymore, and she began to fall frequently due to balance issues and right-foot dragging. Then her cognition issues became more problematic, especially in her job as a trainer in a printing company.

“My executive function, decision-making and short-term memory were affected to the point that I was eventually medically unfit for work,” she says. She stopped working in 2017.

However, she didn’t stop living life. Even though she could no longer run, she continued to swim competitively. She got a Great Dane puppy and trained him as a service dog to help her walk. She also serves as vice chair of the patient support organization Multiple Sclerosis South Africa, and she advises others who have been diagnosed to join a patient advocacy group as soon as possible to get reliable information and meet others with MS.

Helga says she is “hopeful” about the future of MS. “I must say that I am so grateful that we have all the new medications available, because my life would not be the same if it wasn't for that,” she adds.

Part of how she manages her MS is by looking at the positives.

“If I could tell the world one thing about MS, it would be that MS is an incurable disease of the nervous system, but it's also the greatest teacher of valuing your health, family, friends, and managing change in your life,” she says. “My life is diversified in a way that I never, ever thought it would, and MS has been honestly the greatest teacher.”

Each MS journey is unique – with each person impacted experiencing different struggles, successes, and feelings as they manage this unpredictable disease. But the common thread is clear – there is a critical need for information, support, and hope. We are proud to participate in World MS Day and share these incredible stories of living life while living with MS. To learn more about MS, go to https://www.sanofi.com/why-words-really-matter-when-it-comes-to-multiple-sclerosis.

MAT-GLB-2301642-v1.0-05/2023

This article was sponsored by Sanofi. Participants were compensated when applicable.

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