Shifting into High Gear by Kyle Bryant

Author:Kyle Bryant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.
Published: 2019-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

The Queen of Walmart

As we advanced our mileage across the United States, our numbers began to grow. Along with Wally and Mary Krill, who added an additional RV to the lineup, we were powering toward San Antonio to pick up my uncle, who jumped at the opportunity to join us. The next day, a father and son team would arrive from Trophy Club, Texas, the two David Henrys, the younger David dealing with an unidentified form of ataxia (he would add a second recumbent to the mix).

But leading the charge was my mom, peering over the steering wheel of our Dodge Durango, avoiding the occasional ground squirrel or steering around unidentifiable roadkill.

When my mom signed on for the duration of the cross-country trip, she worked as a kindergarten teacher at Maria Montessori Charter Academy in Rocklin, California. With my diagnosis, her life turned upside down. She would leave work in the middle of the day, thinking terrible thoughts. Her visions — my life in a wheelchair, unable to feed myself, losing my ability to communicate — occupied her mind.

She began to reach out to a larger community, which was driven by other mothers who sought answers. Most of the letters and emails I receive come from mothers, who appear in great numbers at meetings, conventions, and fundraising efforts.

I’ve heard this story many times:

My son is fourteen years old, and he spends most of his time in a wheelchair. He can still walk, but he doesn’t want to move. He feels like there’s no point. He’s angry all the time. His “friends” have vanished. No one seems to call him. He doesn’t want to attend school. I don’t know what to do.

When I suggested the cross-country ride, my mom was the first to pack a bag. She was the first to view the trip as an antidote to my family’s helplessness. For a mother, the arrival of a neurodegenerative disease hits like a catastrophic force. They understand the magnitude of the disease. They understand its potential to tear a family apart. My mom wanted to change this narrative. Instead of embracing uncertainty — a worldview that dominated our lives — the anticipation of a cross-country ride introduced an alternative view, one that embraced hope.

Since my mom was fully employed, she took a leave of absence from her job. Eight months after our meal at Outback Steakhouse, my mother jumped behind the wheel of our new 2007 Dodge Durango (a woman who had absolutely no experience pulling a large trailer) and roared away from the cliffs of La Jolla, California.

My dad and I pedaled along, leaning into the elements, facing the wind and the far reaches of the American frontier, but my mom was the force that kept us going.

As she navigated across the continent, she competed with heavy winds, a loaded trailer, and menacing trucks. The Durango was slightly underpowered for our haul, and we hadn’t corrected our tongue weight with a distribution hitch, so the nose of the truck pointed skyward, and made it more difficult to navigate.

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