They told me I had Parkinson's, so I took up flying - with the kids in the back

November 16, 2017   JOEL MAXWELL

Helen Fitton prepares to fly during her pilot training - after her Parkinson's diagnosis.

A single-engine plane trundled down its runway with Helen Fitton at the controls, her flying instructor beside her, and two of her kids in the back, before they all soared off the ground.

"My daughter was going, 'But you're scared of flying', and I'm going, 'Not any more'." 

The incident, in April, came after Fitton was told last year that she had Parkinson's disease.

"I came home and cried solidly for about three or four days," she said of the shock diagnosis.

Her first thoughts were "Isn't that like, really bad? ... You think Michael J Fox, Muhammad Ali".

Fitton, of Waikanae, was diagnosed with Parkinson's aged 42.

Parkinson's is typically more prevalent in those over 60. It is a progressive, degenerative disorder of the brain, with gradual symptoms that can include tremors, loss of muscle control and loss of co-ordination. It is not fatal.

For Fitton, who lives on the Kāpiti Coast, north of Wellington, it started in June 2015, with a limp, then a tumble when she was chasing her 5-year-old son. Then the mother of four found she was struggling with her left hand when playing the piano.

The condition, which was yet to stop her doing anything, had actually "spurred me on", she said. 

Fitton jokes about people getting the kitty-eyed "Puss in Boots from Shrek" look when she tells them she has Parkinson's.

"Because it does make you take a long, hard look at your life. I wanted to be a scout leader and my husband said, 'Why don't you do Air Scouts?', and I said, 'Don't be crazy, I hate flying'." That was the point, she said: to prove to herself she could still do anything.

"For a while you think you can't, and you believe you can't. But I went off and I learned how to fly a plane."

Originally from Yorkshire, in northern England, she speaks with laconic, unsentimental humour about people getting the kitty-eyed "Puss in Boots from Shrek" look when she tells them she has Parkinson's. 

"I get really grumpy when people go, 'Oh Helen, you're such an inspiration'.

"I go, 'no, I'm not, I'm just a normal person' ... You fall apart for a while, then you pick yourself up again and you keep going."

Shaken, not Stirred is Carvell's first book, written with "old-fashioned two-finger typing".

In addition to learning to fly, she has retrained in web design and development.  "Now I'm at the pointy end, and trying to get a job."

She has spoken out about refusing to let her condition define her, as another young Parkinson's sufferer, Pippa Carvell, launches her first book outlining life since her diagnosis aged only 25.

At the time, it made her the youngest Parkinson's patient in the southern hemisphere – but she says it came as something of a relief after years of tests and uncertainty.

"I knew what I was dealing with, then. I had something in common with Muhammad Ali."

However, her initial medication caused hallucinations, she said, including diggers "doing digger ballet" while she drove down Taranaki St.

Carvell with support worker Nury Olivares. She can no longer walk, and her right side is paralysed. 

"I thought I'd better pull over, just to snap out of it."

Carvell, now 44, was a truck driver, and loved sports before her diagnosis. These days, she can no longer walk, but has become a first-time author with the publication of Shaken, Not Stirred. 

Parkinson's came on gradually, she said. "If you can imagine putting on four or five pairs of socks on your foot, and then try to feel it."

She said she wrote the book with old-fashioned "two-finger typing".  She pushed through, like everything in life, with humour and determination. "I don't quit."

* Shaken, not Stirred is published on Friday. For more information, go to www.pippa.nz.

 - Stuff

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/98947691/.html