STRONGER THAN EVER How innovative percussionist Robyn Schulkowsky became a better teacher after facing the horrors of Lyme Disease.
The tick hooked up with me during a simple Sunday walk in the woods. The symptoms were confusing and atypical. Diagnosing the disease, Lyme neuroborreliosis, took way too long. As the disease progressed, I developed acute and constant pain in my neck. Shoulder and knee inflammation made dressing a dreaded and painful experience. My left eye wavered between light and dark. This prohibited accurate readings of the three scores I was preparing for premiere presentations in Cologne, Donaueschingen, and Salzburg. Worse was that I was losing use of my left arm. After too many visits to emergency rooms, appointments at Lyme centers, and with doctors who wanted only to put me in the hospital, I found one physician who did not accuse me of being hysterical. I believe others did because I am a woman and an artist. This doctor was familiar with the disease and its unusual and individual progressions. He loved his work and understood what it means to be passionate about one's vocation, one's calling. I was not an easy patient. The prospect of never being able to drum again hovered there like a big dark cloud. I kept it just out of my sight. Strangely, I continued performing. With each physical loss, my mind helped me create a way around the problem. When the nerves stopped sending the messages to my hand and fingers, I used my forearm. When the forearm ceased responding, I found a way to use my biceps and triceps. I slightly resembled a chicken attempting flight. The thing is, even though it was technically impossible to continue drumming, I kept playing. My wonderful Swiss doctor—I did have to go all the way to Switzerland— diagnosed and treated the condition. My friend Eva, an acupuncture and yin shiatsu genius helped me recover my body, helped teach the nerves to reconnect. Nerves send signals, electric impulses, vibrations. The nerves, like the snares on a drum, vibrate with each other. I think about the sounds my nerves are sending. I think about the sounds I create with my instruments.
These thoughts all helped the trainer push me through the month of therapy necessary to teach my body to notice everything about what it does, to notice itself again, teaching muscles through repetition to stimulate the dormant connection to the nerves. Very slowly, I was able to use my wrist, my fingers. The pain subsided in my knees. I could lift and swing my arms.
The thing is, even though it was technically impossible to continue drumming, I kept playing. Still, I was terrified the little Lyme bacteria would return. In fact it still could. I was at the top of my game, technically. I kept saying, "I don't need this." Because of all the special attention I paid to the needs the body has to work to make music with the drums, I have become a better coach, a better teacher. I can guide my students through difficult technical moves: where to put the weight that controls the marvels of sound, the amazing pallet we drummers can evoke with our instruments. The way we stand and sit and balance our limbs is part of the wonder of the sounds we can produce. Now, almost 20 years down the road, there is only a tiny hook still in my left-hand upstroke. I am so lucky to be making the music I love.
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