Parkinson’s victim finds artistic calling
New treatment
appears to have
helped woman
BY LINDA DeNICOLA
Staff Writer

JEFF GRANIT staff Elena Tuero, who has Parkinson’s disease, recently discovered a skill she never knew she had — the ability to paint.

With medical advances in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, Elena Tuero has gotten her speech and mobility back after many years of not having control over those functions.

At one point she felt so hopeless that she tried to take her life. That was about 13 years ago. Although her life with debilitating Parkinson’s disease remained a struggle, she found the will to live because she had three daughters to raise. In June, after undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery, Tuero, 44, found a reason to live just for herself — painting.

"Painting means so much to me. Before I had given up on me. Now my kids talk about me with pride," she said.

In addition to painting, the pretty Peruvian woman with high cheekbones said she cares about things she didn’t care about before the procedure, like how she looks.

"I like clothes now. Before I didn’t care what I put on in the morning. Now I like to look nice," she said.

Tuero, who was born in Peru and came to the United States when she was 13, has lived in Freehold Township for 11 years. Her oldest daughter is married and the younger two are teenagers living at home. They are both honor students, one at Freehold Borough High School and the other at the Eisenhower Middle School.

Tiffany, 14, said she is amazed at what her mother can do.

"I think it is so interesting that my mom, who never did anything like this, can paint these beautiful pictures (after the deep brain stimulation). My friends are all amazed, too," she said.

Tuero is also amazed because she did not know she had artistic ability. One day in September she picked up a paint brush and created her first painting.

"My first painting turned out so well. I wasn’t prepared for it myself. I couldn’t believe that I could hold a brush and I didn’t know anything about paint," the artist said.

She recently took two classes and the teacher told her she was gifted and did not need lessons; she just needed to paint.

"I use magazines, post cards and books as a reference for ideas, but than I do it my way," she explained.

Tuero said she started with acrylics, but now only uses oils.

"It’s a challenge to me. Oil slows me down. With acrylics, I worked too fast," she said.

She has not stopped painting since the day she started and now has a room full of colorful impressionist and cubist-style works that are vibrant and whimsical expressions of her artistic and hopeful na­ture.

She works all of the time she is awake.

"If I can’t sleep, I get up and paint. There is no special time for painting. I do it whenever I am inspired. You’re there with yourself and your own dream," she said.

According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Deep Brain Stimulation in the thalamus for the treatment of tremor was approved by the FDA in 1997. Subsequently, it has been found that stimulation of certain parts of the brain can relieve multiple symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

Before her June 26 surgery in which surgeons implanted two batteries into her chest with wires to her brain, Tuero took as many as 30 pills a day and the shaking was so bad that she had to lie on the floor to protect herself from getting hurt.

"Now, sometimes I feel like a robot, because it (the device) is constantly on, but I had gotten to the point that nothing was working," she said, adding, "I was in the late stage of Parkinson’s. I had to be fed."

She knew going into the surgery that it was risky and complicated.

"According to my doctors, there is more of a chance that something can go wrong than there is with any other surgery. I was so scared. I had to be awake. I forced myself to remember my family and friends who were praying for me. I started to sing out loud a song from my childhood in Peru so that I would not hear the drill.

"God of the miracles, here we come jointly, in a procession, to witness your miracle. I sang it for about two hours like in a trance. I have so much faith in God. He always comes back and helps you," she said.

Tuero was 28 when she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. The doctors attributed the early onset of the disease to being re­peatedly kicked in the head by an abusive husband from the time she was 19. He eventually abandoned her; her oldest daughter went with her father and Tuero was left to raise her two younger daugh­ters.

"I learned that you have to let go of things and live. I have no hostile feelings against anybody. When I was so sick, I would think of all of the good things that happened in my life," she said.

The disease has progressed steadily. Eight years ago, when walking became too strenuous, she decided it was easier to use a wheelchair. Then in 1996, she en­tered Columbia Presbyterian Hospital’s fetal cell transplant research program and went to Denver to have surgery.

"I was one of the first 40 people in the program. I didn’t know if I had a placebo or the real thing. I found out about a year later that I had the cell transplant, but it didn’t work," she said.

On her easel is a work in progress. It is a black cat that she is painting for her daughter’s friend’s birthday. She laughed when she said that her daughter’s friends are always giving her ideas for paintings.

But Tuero has many ideas of her own. Up and down the walls of her small stu­dio are the paintings that she has done since September. There is no room on the walls, so Tiffany is hanging them from a molding just below the ceiling.

"I would like to begin selling some of my work. My painting supplies are so ex­pensive," she said.

Tuero recently spoke to an artist at a local gallery.

"I asked him for some secrets of paint­ing. He told me to use a finer brush for a lighter brush stroke. I found out that he used tape to make fine lines," she said, adding, "I don’t need tape. I can make fine lines now without shaking."

Tuero knows the Parkinson’s is still progressing in her body, but, she said, "I’m at a point in my life where I want to survive."