“Parkinson’s disease sucks”
It’s heartening to see people who still believe in public service as a vocation. A neighbor spent his career in international development. My state representative served first in the Peace Corps. I recently met a couple who retired here after careers as Foreign Service officers.
Donald Trump calls Washington, D.C. a swamp and people eat it up in part because guys like George Santos and Bob Menendez give public service a bad name. (Even though there’s some “both sides” to that, political corruption and faithlessness does seem to have a right-wing bias.)
Yet some people still believe. They’re not the ones who become notorious in the press.
CBS this morning profiles Virginia congresswoman Jennifer Wexton (D). Wexton comes from a family of public servants. She’s afflicted with a rare disease, yet forgoes some speech and physical therapy to keep serving her consituents:
Progressive Supra-nuclear Palsy, as Wexton said, has no cure. At this time, there is no treatment that will slow its progression, and it tends not to respond to medication, according to the National Institutes of Health. It often worsens rapidly, and most patients “develop severe disability within three to five years of symptom onset.” It affects movement — loss of balance is a common symptom — and causes slurred speech. Vision problems often develop as the disease progresses, too.
Wexton described exhaustion, missed therapy appointments and lost sleep as the effects of the recent relentless House schedule. The narrowest of margins between the parties meant she needed to be present on Capitol Hill for the dozens of votes and debates.
Her fatigue was so severe that she suspects it contributed to a painful fall at her home in Virginia four weeks ago. It was the fall that injured her neck and continues to cause her pain.
“It’s just so hard for me now,” Wexton told CBS News. Her voice and her ability to speak have been impaired by her medical condition, and her fatigue has grown.
“Fatigue absolutely does have an impact,” she said during an extended interview. “The most important thing you can do is get sleep.”
She teared up several times as she echoed the message she sent to constituents in a written statement earlier this year: “I’m heartbroken to have to give up something I have loved after so many years of serving my community.”
“I’ve been worse since September. It’s been tiring. It’s been really hard being here for the ten weeks,” she said. “It’s awful.”
Wexton will leave the office she’s held since 2019 after sge defeated incumbent Republican Barbara Comstock.
“There is no ‘getting better’ with PSP,” Wexton told the press in September. She was dignosed in April. “People with progressive supranuclear palsy typically die six to nine years after their diagnosis,” reports the Cleveland Clinic. Plus, “People with PSP also have a higher risk of falls, which can result in bone fractures and head traumas. Falls that cause serious injuries are a common cause of death among people with PSP.”
We wish her well.