Column: Challenges of Parkinson’s are more pronounced when routines are broken

Sometimes the routine of daily living helps me to forget that I have Parkinson’s disease.

It’s not that my tremors and stiffness disappear, it’s that I pay scant attention to them as I go about my routine. Parkinson’s will always be the 10,000-pound elephant in my living room, but I don’t need to empower it.

My strategy is to take my meds, live a prudent lifestyle, exercise and keep Parkinson’s at bay.

No simple task.

It’s when I travel to new and exotic locales that the disease smacks me in the kisser. Unfamiliar surroundings bring about a physical reaction. When I’m not in control of my environment Parkinson’s controls me.

Parkinson’s is a progressive neurological disorder with no known cure. It causes nerve cells to die or become impaired, and patients exhibit tremors or shaking, slowness of movement, rigidity or stiffness, loss of facial mobility and balance difficulties. Other signs include a shuffling gait, cognitive problems and muffled speech.

I’ve had it for 12 years.

I’m familiar with the disease’s outward signs, though every now and then I’m confronted with a new or advancing symptom, like drenching night sweats. I’ve been having those lately.

“Is it possible the sweats are caused by my Parkinson’s,” I asked my neurologist the other day.

“Absolutely possible,” she responded.

Parkinson’s can impact the body’s ability to regulate its temperature; that’s a new piece of information to add to my growing catalog.

It can precipitate other insidious disorders like insomnia, narcolepsy, loss of the ability to smell, dizziness, dry eyes and flaky skin. It can produce gut-wrenching constipation or flashes of forgetfulness -– like forgetting a name or detail.

The disease is exasperating. Was it conferred upon me for some weighty existential reason or is it just a cosmic screw-up? I don’t really know.

Parkinson’s symptoms never go away, they worsen. At home they can be dealt with. When I’m on the road Parkinson’s rears its ugly head. I used to be able to hide my symptoms from the public. Now it’s obvious to strangers that I’m afflicted with something.

The other morning at 2 my wife, Hedy, and I awoke to catch a 5:30 flight to Raleigh, N.C.

I had difficulty rousing my unwilling body from deep slumber. I fought gravity to get to an upright position. Slowly and deliberately I pushed and pulled my creaking carcass off the mattress.

“This stinks,” I muttered to no one in particular.

I often feel captive to the vicissitudes of this curse.

Going through the TSA check-in that morning was a comedy of errors. Juggling my cane, laptop computer and carry-on in my arms I tried also to grasp my sandals from the conveyor belt with my fingertips. I dropped everything.

The plane’s overhead bin became one more challenge. A kindly passenger offered assistance in lifting my carry-on. Like my 5-year-old grandson, I petulantly claimed I could do it myself. I couldn’t.

During our layover in Kansas City I spent 15 minutes fighting a recalcitrant belt buckle in the men’s lavatory. I feared I was going to have to call an attendant of some sort.

Parkinson’s stinks.

When we arrived in Raleigh, a late lunch at a fast-food restaurant proved more than awkward when a huge dollop of “secret sauce” fell into my lap. How would I explain that to my grand kids? I wore my shirttail out for the remainder of the day.

Capping things off, I looked like Buster Keaton as I tried to wrestle our suitcase off the baggage claim belt.

Parkinson’s stinks.

Without Hedy I wouldn’t have made it.

While awaiting our connection at Kansas City International Airport I made the acquaintance of a fellow traveler, 76-year-old Maynard. A former North Carolina football and basketball player, Maynard now resides in Missouri.

We talked sports, travels and Southern accents. Finally, in the biggest faux pas of the day, Maynard — just as I was beginning to like him — looked at me seriously and said, “Jim, Hedy’s your daughter, right?”

“No Maynard, she’s my wife … of 43 years.”

I swear, Parkinson’s steals your youthful good looks too.

Jim Carnett, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.