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Living and learning with Parkinson's

By BILL COATES
Valley Life Editor

Published: Friday, January 27, 2012 9:38 AM MST

Charlie Shields lives with Parkinson’s disease in a modest house near downtown Casa Grande.

His living room is big enough to hold a coffee table and his mobility scooter, but not much more. He lives with his two dogs, landscapes he painted himself and a collection of old magazines, including a February 1984 Life magazine. It features the Beatles, 20 years after they spearheaded the British rock ’n’ roll invasion.

He also lives with stares from adults and ridicule from kids when he goes out in public. The disease makes it hard for him to control his movements. Sometimes he falls down.

It’s not new to Shields, who is 69. He has lived with Parkinson’s since 1971.

For him, there’s before Parkinson’s and after Parkinson’s. Before Parkinson’s, he was a chef at Francisco Grande Hotel & Golf Resort. He co-owned an antique shop in downtown Casa Grande. He raised purebred dogs. He drove sports cars. He had money in the bank.

As he told his story, he brought out a photo album and set it on the coffee table. He flipped through the pages, filled with pictures of a handsome young man. That’s him, before Parkinson’s. In one picture, he’s attired in a white chef’s coat, one he earned through experience and training.

He started his career as a dishwasher right out of high school in Nogales, making $400 a month. He was soon made a cook, then chef. His work took him to New York, where he attended a culinary arts school. On his return to Arizona, he eventually became the sous chef at Francisco Grande — the second in command.

“I was sitting on top of the world,” Shields said.

Then one day he noticed something. It wasn’t much, at first.

“My little finger started moving up and down, and then it went to my wrist, then my whole body started shaking.”

Parkinson’s doesn’t get better, only worse. It had settled in for the long haul. And Shields lost just about everything. The job. The car. The store. The money. He no longer raised purebreds.

Harder yet, he began to draw looks in public, for all the wrong reasons. Worse was the taunting he got from kids. That never seems to stop. Just last Christmas, he said, he was outside trying to string up holiday lights.

“Kids started throwing rocks at me,” he said.

Shields is a live-and-learn type, however. And just as his experience in the kitchen taught him a lot about cooking, his years with Parkinson’s taught him a lot about facing an unrelenting disease. He wants to share what he has learned with others — both those who have Parkinson’s and those who don’t.

“I want them to know that we’re human beings,” he said. To those with Parkinson’s, he added: “I tell people, don’t mind them. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

For Shields, that has been a challenge. He lives on some $700 in Social Security and disability. Four hundred of that would go to rent, if the landlord insisted on it. He expects to have his cellphone back in service after he receives his next check. Then he can pay his past due bill. His house has been burglarized more than a few times. Some of his favorite Beatles videotapes were stolen.

Then came the low point. He was at a restaurant with a friend and neighbor. Other customers stared, whispered. Sometimes, it’s hard to take your own advice and let the ugly comments simply roll off your shoulders.

Shields recalled his offhand remark to his neighbors. “I told them, if I had any balls, I’d kill myself.”

Later, perhaps at the neighbors’ behest, Shields said, police did a welfare check on him. He ended up in the behavioral health unit of Casa Grande Regional Medical Center. There he made it clear, he had a lot to live for. Ending it all was not part of the plan.

“I have a lot of things I want to accomplish,” he said.

He’d like to teach culinary arts, and visual arts like painting. He still paints, even with Parkinson’s. The paintings on the wall were post-Parkinson efforts. They are landscapes of farmhouses in faraway places like Monument Valley.

And he still creates what he calls fruit trees, a culinary art with a variety of fruit carved and arranged in the shape of an animal. His hand is somewhat steadier now with an implant that sends signals to his brain. It helps control the tremors. And he has taught himself a way to walk. He steadies himself on a cane or a piece of furniture as he counts to 10, providing focus before he takes a step. He can then go several paces before he has to stop and count again.

And he will continue to enlighten others about Parkinson’s. What were once painful experiences, he now turns into teachable moments. He recently walked a quarter of a mile to reach St. Vincent de Paul Society on Second Street. It took him 45 minutes, he said. When he finally got there, he faced the usual stares and asides from others, he said.

He gave a speech. He told the onlookers he was an intelligent human being who happened to speak five languages.

“I’m not a dummy,” he told them. They got the message. “They all apologized.”

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