This work is copyrighted by my business name, The Harfolk Press. Conseqently, I must insist that you do not make any copies, except one for your own private use. If for any reason you want more than one copy, send me an E-mail with the details and I will give your request prompt and serious consideration. Bill MY SECOND LIFE Chapter FOUR C A NON-PRACTISING INTELLECTUAL My next three and a half years working at the Bank were spent in relative peace and obscurity in the gold department, developing new products, while my Parkinson's got worse. Since I now had gone public, I no longer had the stress of trying to hide my condition. Nonetheless, I was an enigma to the people at the Bank. They did not know what I was or was not capable of doing. And I did not always know what I could do, and I could not tell how people reacted to me. One of the features of Parkinson's, as well as many other chronic medical conditions, is the inability of the sufferer to distinguish the rate at which his condition is "progressing." Partly this is because, as a patient, you usually don't have a set of objective standards against which to regularly measure or test yourself. But also it is because you really don't want to know. Denial is subtle and pervasive. You say to yourself, "Parkinson's won't progress in me. I'm different." Of course we are all different, but there are immutable laws to which we are all subject. Denial is a reaction to fatalism or determinism. One of my early assignments was to work out, or collect, on a loan to a gold producer which we were afraid was soon going to become uncollectible. Some years before, the bank had been overeager to increase its loans to junior mining companies, particularly those in Quebec. This was one that had not been successful. With the assistance of the bank's mining engineer, we analyzed the reserve report, which detailed the size of the ore body, the grade of the ore and the mining plan, showing how and in what order the ore would be mined. On these bases alone, and even with optimistic gold price forecasts, the mine would have had trouble repaying its loan. We travelled to Quebec with the mining engineer, went over the reserve report and mining plan in detail and inspected the mine. Scrambling about in a gold mine several thousand feet below the surface was not something that I had looked forward to. But, for the first time I encountered a Parkinsonian truth: Parkinsonians have less difficulty walking on uneven ground or walking up stairs or up a ladder, as compared to level ground. The Bank had been concerned about the problems Parkinson's might cause me on this business trip, but none arose. I had to bring myself up to speed on the whole business of gold loans, exchange for physical, forwards, and a peculiar transaction known in the department as "slow spot". It was a challenge, but after I realized that all these concepts involved the time value of money, it was straightforward. It was pretty obvious that my managers at the bank were not giving me much to do. The reason, not obvious to me at the time was, of course, Parkinson's. In a chronic condition like Parkinson's the patient is often the last person to recognise and acknowledge the symptoms. I really didn't know or perceive what was happening to me. I was, to a large degree, unaware of my tremor, limping, facial contortions and other Parkinson's symptoms. But my bosses were concerned about how the bank's customers would react to someone with this disconcerting appearance. So I was given desk jobs. The principal one was an apparently simple yet complex assignment task: to see if I could come up with some new products for the Bank to market. I did develop one product which I thought had considerable appeal. It was a "zero interest gold loan". In spite of the product development completed assignment, I was still left with little to do. Instead of just sitting on my thumb, I began to read voraciously. The number of periodicals that the Bank subscribed to was almost without number, ranging from The Wall Street Journal and The Economist to arcane newsletters dealing with politics and economics around the world. At home I read books on history, politics and intellectual history. I did not recognize it at the time, but I was beginning to adapt my life to Parkinson's. As I was constrained in my job by my physical limitations, I was discovering that intellectual activity had no constraints. How could I put my newly acquired knowledge to good use? One way was to write. I started by writing speeches for Esther to give at the Board of Education. She only used one of them because she said they were too redneck - I considered myself a Burkean Conservative. And, to be honest, I think she resented my interference in her job. I also began trying to write gold market letters for the bank. Reading them over now, over ten years later, I think they stand up pretty well, but the bank eventually decided against using them because I was unwilling to remove my political bias from the commentary and the bank thought, probably rightly, that right-wing commentary would be poorly received by some of their clients. I am often wrong, but rarely in doubt. This characteristic, which could be described variously as strong-willed, individualistic or pig-headed, often has got me into trouble but it can also be a great source of strength. It gives me the conviction to be a strong advocate for the argument I am making at the time. But in retrospect, I can see that at this time, at the bank, the stress of having Parkinson's, combined with the psychological effects of the medications I was on, clouded my judgement and allowed me to ignore the merit in the bank's position and perhaps, worse, permitted me to overstate my case. Also, I hadn't yet developed the team player attitude that is so important in any endeavour, although I had been working for large companies for two decades. I am reminded of Barbra Streisand's response to Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes, the television programme when he asked her why she had been a patient in analysis for twenty-five years. She replied, "I guess I'm a slow learner. Over the course of that winter, 1987-88, I had been fascinated by the Lac Minerals-International Corona lawsuit. It concerned rights over a mineral deposit and was the largest civil litigation in Canada's history. The Bank was interested in the outcome because Lac was a large client. I proposed following the trial for the Bank, writing analytical essays for the gold department and other interested parties but could get no support. I then wrote a 7,000 word article on the subject, which I tried selling to various magazines to no avail. Looking back, I can see that I was trying to develop a new range of interests, and I can also see that the bank was giving me a tremendous amount of freedom. My intellectual growth at this time was undisciplined, without critical judgement being applied. I was so keen on my newly acquire knowledge and intellectual activity, that I was blind and deaf to even to the most constructive criticism. I was the loner, the outsider, in the world, but not of it. I later discovered that the Bank was at its wits end about what to do with me. Now, I can understand their problem. My Parkinsonian symptoms were increasingly obvious: the expressionless mask, limping, tremor, involuntary micro-naps and indistinct speech. David Turner, my manager, had taken the unusual step of consulting Esther, asking her what I was capable of and what I was not. He told her his frustration at asking me to revise material, only to have me resubmit to him virtually unchanged. I had been unaware that my symptoms had apparently increased dramatically over that winter. It was some time before I discovered that this was a result of Deprenyl, a new medication which for me had the effect of magnifying the adverse effects of other drugs and as well as causing some personality changes. Consequently, at the same time that I was undergoing a good deal of intellectual growth, I was losing my critical judgement. I had begun taking involuntary micro-naps during the work day, the result, as I later discovered, of medications. One of those quick snoozes was responsible for what could have been a serious car accident in the summer of 1986. Emily and I, together with Sir, the Airedale terrier which had replaced Madame, and had left for Toronto Blue Sea Lake about 4:30 in the morning on the last Friday in June. Near the town of Hastings I dozed off as we were coming to a stop sign. I ran into, and partly under, a large Beatrice Milk truck. Luckily, no one was hurt. There was a longish delay as we waited for the police, had the car towed to a bodyshop and arranged for repairs. The police chief of Hastings took us to Norwood, about ten kilometres away so we could rent a car and resume our journey. Although there was no rush, he turned the flashing light on as well as the siren and was going at least 140 km/hr. Just as he was telling us that, in 30 years as a policeman, he had "never fired a shot in anger, son", he asked me to put his handcuffs in the glove compartment. As I did so, I could not help noticing that it was full of ammunition. When I pointed out the seeming discrepancy, his laconic reply was a gruff "never hurts to be prepared, son" The incident had frightened Emily so much that she would never drive on the highway with me again. And frightened she might well have been. Had the micro-nap occurred on a major highway, the accident could have been fatal. This was an important stage in the progress of Parkinson's in my life. Something happened as a result of the medication I was taking for Parkinson's, and I had no one to turn to. Still, I did not want the police to notice that I had Parkinson's. My driving licence might be taken away. The policeman certainly didn't even hint at that, thank heavens! At about this time a new weekly newsmagazine had started up called Seven Days. A Conservative party friend of mine, Warren Armstrong, had some connection with the promoters of the magazine and knew that they were looking for a columnist on political affairs. He suggested me and the editors took me on sight unseen. The magazine lasted thirteen weeks and I had thirteen articles published. I used the nom de plume Josephine Churchill because the Bank, as noted earlier, was not keen on employees publishing articles with a political viewpoint. The topics were as diverse as the Iran-Iraq war, arms control, foreign policy, Canadian politics and the school system. I soon settled into a routine for writing the articles. The deadline was noon Thursday. As I was now sleeping no more than five hours a night, I would get up at five am and work on the column until seven. After the first few weeks, the column would be finished by my self-imposed deadline. This was a positive consequence of my adapting to Parkinson's. My habit of writing in the morning is now firmly entrenched in my daily routine. One project which captured my imagination was totally unrelated to work of any kind. Starting in 1974, I developed a growing interest in drinking fine wines and cooking wonderful meals. In the winter of 1986-87 after some encouragement by friends, I put together a cookbook, The Great Menu Book, and had hopes of getting it published. Anne Lindsay had been very successful with her books for The Heart and Stroke Foundation. Why, I wondered, couldn't I do the same for either the Movement Disorders Clinic or the Parkinson's Foundation? The first instalment had four menus: a meal we'd had after the trip to Buffalo, a small lunch party, coping with New Year's Day, and Gourmet Cooking on a Canoe Trip. Toronto Life magazine bought the most unlikely menu, the canoe trip one. It was a satirical menu, aimed at the environmental 'deep thinkers' who always had a solution to every problem. It began, "We are Rolls Royce campers and proud of it". I couldn't get any interest in the project as a fund raiser from the Parkinson Foundation or the Movement Disorder clinic, but I ran off about fifty copies for friends. It was a hit with them and I printed a second instalment a few years later. It's ironic that I would try to put out a cookbook at just the time that I was losing my sense of smell and taste. That happens to most Parkinsonians, but I did not know that. Its one of the cruel things in life - and dangerous too - if you lose the use of those two vital senses. Imagine not being able to tell if bacon is rancid, eggs rotten or if you have put too much or too little spice in a dish you are cooking. It was one thing to write about current affairs or even cooking. It was quite another to write on theology. We had been going to Christ Church, Deer Park for almost twenty years. I had been active as a warden, as chair of a committee that recommended a new pipe organ, and as a delegate to Synod, the governing council of the diocese. Now my faith, such as it was, was evolving. It had been an unquestioning one, accepting the traditions and rituals of the Anglican Church in which Esther and I had both grown up, and based on my admiration of individuals who happened to be Christian, a sort of personalized ad hominem argument. The change, and it was a profound one, involved a shift from asking bitterly and selfishly, "Why me, God?" to asking "Why not me, God?" I was asked to preach a sermon on Reformation Sunday, October 25, 1987 at Christ Church Deer Park, our parish church. The topic was the need for absolute moral standards and the folly of ethical relativism. My peroration ... We can conclude, or at least I can, that whenever men or regimes start to impose ideas on people, the insidious process of human engineering begins, shovelling flesh and blood around like soil or concrete. Pushing people around seems to be peculiar to socialism, whether of the Russian variety, the German National Socialist kind or the perverse and sinister ethnic socialism in South Africa known as Apartheid. It was set up by the social psychology department of Stellenbosch University. Other types of state socialism in black Africa have usually been legitimized by university intellectuals. So, beware of the intellectual. Far from being non-conformists, they are ultra conformist within the circle whose approval they seek. En masse, this makes them dangerous as it lets them create intellectual climates which can generate irrational and sometimes violent courses of action. Remember that people should come before ideas, not the other way round. I thought the sermon was successful. However, afterwards when I listened to a tape recording of the sermon, I realized that my voice was becoming a monotone and I was starting to rush words together. So this was why people would ask me to repeat what I was saying! My physical appearance was beginning to be disconcerting to others. This was principally dyskinesia, a side-effect of my medications, but akinesia - poverty of movement - and bradykinesia - slowness of movement were also occurring in perverse combination. I did not realise it at the time because I rarely looked in a full-length mirror, and people did not want to hurt my feelings. This all gave rise to an unusual combination: I was going though spiritual and intellectual growth at the same time that I was deteriorating physically. The odd thing was that I was not conscious of this peculiar juxtaposition. This too was a form of denial. My intellectual transformation was not the only positive thing that happened to me in these years. My friend Stephen Booth had married Gillian Rowan-Legge whose family owns a share of a salmon fishing camp on the Upsalquitch River, the first New Brunswick tributary of the famous Restigouche River. Stephen invited me to join him on his in-law's fishing party. That first year we drove down in two cars. The party comprised Stephen, Ted and Michael Rowan-Legge, Philip Arthur, David Thornton, and me. On the first day we drove as far as Rivière du Loup on the south shore of the St. Lawrence. We stayed at the Auberge de la Pointe, with rooms that had a superb view of the St. Lawrence River and the spectacular sunset. In the morning we saw Beluga whales surfacing midway across the river. As it was a Sunday morning, Stephen celebrated Holy Communion before breakfast at 7:15, which gave the day a good start. Tension mounted as we entered the Matapaedia Valley, through which flows one of Quebec's great salmon rivers to its junction with the fabulous Restigouche. Over lunch at the Restigouche Hotel, the locals were full of optimism. That wasn't very surprising considering that the regional economy is dependant on the sport fishery. We arrived at the camp at about 3:30 pm, with the temperature in the mid 90s Fahrenheit. We unpacked, assembled our tackle, had pre-dinner drinks and then dinner. The experience of three-and-a-half days fishing produced some interesting juxtapositions: fishing tackle that was a combination of hi-tech graphite rods and flies that hadn't changed much since the turn of the century; guides who lived apparently contented lives of rural poverty and "sports" who lived sophisticated lives of conspicuous consumption. My juxtaposition was Parkinsonian and physical. I experienced for the first time the excruciating pain of having my toes turn under themselves for periods of time, usually no more than twenty minutes. This was the first dyskinesia, literally "bad movement", I had known. It happened while I was out for a run with the Rowan-Legge brothers. The cure was simple, but I had to wait to get back to civilization for it. Two capsules of lithium carbonate daily, a medication usually associated with bipolar depression, did the trick. I also experienced a sense of community. Everyone on our party knew I had Parkinson's, but they made no special efforts to accommodate me, except for helping me get in and out of canoes. I was accepted without reservation. For the first time in years, I felt good about life, and the trips I made to Waquita over the next few years were great occasions to develop enjoy wonderful friendships and to develop a serious interest in the art of fly fishing. I killed no salmon that first year. But one rainy evening I had one on for ten minutes, before I lost it. A few years later, I wrote a short story called "My Ghillie" in which I used Stephen as the model for an ideal fishing guide. On that same first evening, after a camp meal that will never be forgotten, in the pouring rain, we went downriver to the Boyne Pool. "I would use a number ten Silver Rat, high water version, sir." Hours passed, casting through rain to no avail. Utterly unlike a New Brunswick guide, he watched every cast, advising and untangling wind knots with just the right mixture of deference, sarcasm and respect, surrounding each comment like a caul. After three hours, even my patience was being stretched. Suddenly my reel started screaming as the salmon that had set the hook in his mouth took of upriver. Dunne poled the canoe to shore, always with an eye on the fish, issuing quick, terse commands: "... Rod down ... take up the slack ... let him run ... don't let him tie your line around that deadhead .... bring him in, sir ... congratulations sir, you have a twelve pound salmon." In the spring of 1988, everyone recommended that I start seeing a psychiatrist. Everyone was Esther, Dr. Polak and David Turner, my manager. Three people may not be "everyone", but to me it seemed as if they were all ganging up on me. The reason was twofold: the depression that I had been experiencing in the couple of years just would not go away, and I was spending money as if there was going to be no tomorrow. If I kept on spending at the rate I was, my family would soon be impoverished. Over-spending was nothing new to me in 1988. I had little financial self-discipline in my life up to then, but the problem had never been too serious. Now Esther took charge of our finances with a singleness of purpose and dedication that is characteristic. She thought she had me on the straight and narrow in no time. The idea of going to a shrink was anathama to me but there was enough pressure on me that I had to go ahead. My first psychiatrist agreed to see me on the basis of a behaviour contract. My side of the bargain was that I would not spend money; his side of the contract was that he would cure my spending and lift my depression. It was an overly simplistic contract, it was oral, and I did not fully understand the implications. Moreover, my psychiatrist, an East Indian, and I profoundly misunderstood each other. He habitually smiled and nodded at virtually everything I said, which I assumed indicated approval. Nothing could have been further from the truth. In any event, I had a huge spending spurt, and my psychiatrist fired me. I protested that you don't give someone an umbrella, and then take it away as soon as it starts to rain. The solution to my spending problem was to get rid of my depression. That took two and a half years to accomplish with the next psychiatrist, Dr. Kohl. My sessions with him were much more productive. They focused on looking for the underlying causes of the depression, which were twofold: Parkinson's and my relationship with my now-dead father. But before that there was a real crisis in the fall of 1988. Esther, having discovered the extent of the recent spending spree phoned Dr. Lang and said "Get Bill into hospital fast!" "How soon?" Lang said. "Yesterday", she said. My Parkinson's medications had disoriented my mind to the extent that I could not count backward from 10, and I was totally confused. First they got me off Deprenyl. I was in the hospital for two weeks while Dr. Lang and his colleagues, including shrinks from the Western, figured out that Deprenyl was the principal reason for the deepening of my depression and my personality change. That was the simple, and it turned out, correct solution. That provided some short-term relief. It is now clear to me that the mixture of Deprenyl with the other medications I was taking had produced the chemical imbalance in my brain which had caused the undesirable effects on my behaviour and personality. Another side effect was the magnification of my dyskinesia. It turned out that not enough was yet known about the effects of Deprenyl, indeed about many of the other available psychotropic drugs, on the functioning areas of the brain. This singularity was the first of many I would experience over the next decade. Fortunately, it was the by far the most unpleasant one. The fundamental problem remained: my Parkinson's symptoms were going through a growth phase - they were getting worse quickly and the basic depression was more deeply embedded in me than I had imagined. Involuntary micro-naps now occurred several times a day without warning and my speech was rushed nd monotone. My gait was distinctly irregular and there was the tremor in both hands. Work now was an utter sham. That is, the thought that I was accomplishing anything worthwhile while at work was a sham. Sham notwithstanding, in November I had my annual Performance Appraisal. I was graded "Fully Satisfactory" and given a salary increase. Who were they kidding? It turned out that they were not even kidding themselves. Peter Godsoe, in a file memo, had said that until further notice I was to be graded at that level and to receive salary increases in line with that rating. While Godsoe's generous gesture insured that I would not suffer financially as a result of Parkinson's as long as I worked, I sensed that the end was near. I was right. On a bitter January day in 1989, I was told that I would go on short-term disability pending long-term disability in six months time. Knowing it was coming did not soften the blow. The brutal way the telling of the news was given to me was shattering. Just leave. There will be no farewell party for you. Don't linger saying goodbyes. Just leave. In retrospect, it is easy, even obvious to see the reason: they did not know how I would react and they wanted to minimize the possibility of an embarrassing scene. Wisely, I went gentle into that good night.