By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
PARKINSON’S disease doesn’t stand still – but neither does Hallam trailblazer Anne Atkin.
Under a warm pink beanie, Ms Atkin is recuperating from a radical operation that wired her brain to an electricity-generating ‘pacemaker’ last month.
Dulled only by local anaesthetics during the six-hour procedure, Ms Atkin was awake as drills and screws bore into her skull.
“It leaves the dentist drill for dead,” a still shaken Ms Atkin said.
Two large frames were screwed on to steady her shaven head and also to help guide the electric wire into both hemispheres of her brain’s subthalamic nucleus.
Ms Atkin still sports two 10-centimetre scars on the left and right of her head. The 55 staples have just been removed.
Meanwhile, the ‘pacemaker’ – which will emit up to 1.7 volts to both brain hemispheres – bulges in front of her left collar-bone.
It is manually recharged once a week.
Ms Atkin said the gruelling procedure has brought her about five years of less medication, less fatigue and more movement until Parkinson’s “rears its ugly head again”.
By that time, she hopes more medical and technological breakthroughs will buy her more time or even a long-awaited cure.
“You can’t stay the way you are with Parkinson’s.”
Initially after the operation, she felt awful – worse than before the surgery. Nauseous and vomiting, she wondered “what have I done”.
Then the power was activated 30 days later on 30 June. The electric stimulation stopped her neurones “misfiring” and gave more movement to her slowing, rigidifying limbs.
She has also since halved her dopamine-replacement medication as a result.
“I feel like I’ve defrosted.
“At the moment, I’m terrific but down below there’s Parkinson’s is progressing bit by bit.”
Ms Atkin has just put the finishing touches to her book – with her own cartoon illustrations – exploring life before and after the operation.
Channel 9 News will air her operation in coming weeks. Ms Atkin is unsure if she really wants to relive that ordeal.
Ms Atkin, who formed the life-changing Painting with Parkinson’s group in Berwick, has just opened her latest joint exhibition in the City of Casey civic centre.
Her landscape pastels are of places she’s photographed, capturing dusk and dawn light and surging oceans.
Creativity is a major way of retaining quality of life, she says.
Ms Atkin is also ambassador for Walk in the Park – the main annual fund-raiser for Parkinson’s research and support in Victoria.
Last year was the first time she couldn’t finish the two-kilometre walk in central Melbourne.
Thanks to her operation, she’s confident she’s got the distance covered this coming August.
“The good thing is every cent raised goes to helping people with Parkinson’s.”
To support Ms Atkin in the fund-raiser, go to awitp-vic-2016.everydayhero.com/au/anne
