It was at the age of 38 that Rodrigo Mendes, an economist at BNDES (National Bank for Social Development) who liked to run through the beautiful landscapes of Rio de Janeiro, discovered, in a consultation that he imagined was routine, that he had juvenile Parkinson’s disease, the degenerative disease responsible due to the cramps he had felt in his legs for two years and the still small tremors in his right hand. “It was a shock,” he recalls, now 51 years old. “It was a very hard blow, it took me about six months to assimilate everything, I soon found myself in a wheelchair, and even managing to get out of that hole was very difficult, I gained 15 kilos and felt tremendous depression.” But life offered him a new chance to change that future: mountaineering.
The story of Mendes, who climbed from the bottom of this hole to the highest peaks by hand, based on many hours of weight training, Pilates, cycling, juggling, swimming and specialized guidance, is the theme of the short film Despertar, which will be shown on November 9th at the Rio Mountain Festival, in Rio de Janeiro. Directed by Rafael Duarte and Karina Oliani, the documentary has already won two relevant awards: best film (audience choice) at Rocky Spirit, in São Paulo, and best short film at the Cine Health Film Festival, a showcase of films from US Health.
The way out of the hole involved a series of sporting activities to which he dedicates three hours a day. “I started doing things that I hadn’t done before the disease, testing my limits, people were surprised to see that I could do activities that many younger, healthier people couldn’t”, he adds, highlighting that he is in better physical shape today than before diagnosis.
And, as challenge and mountaineering are words that usually go together, Mendes focused on the nearest pirambeiras, which he previously only saw from the ground, in this case, the slopes of Rio’s mountains. From there, upon seeing that he could balance the control of his movements by adjusting the specific medication, he set off beyond the country’s borders. He climbed, for example, Huayna Potosi, with an altitude of 6,088 meters, in Bolivia, and Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa, in Tanzania, with 5,895 meters. From there, I wanted to try to summit Aconcagua, the highest mountain in South America, at 6,961 meters, but bad weather prevented the journey from being completed just a few meters from the finish line — for now.
“In the beginning, people who are not close to me don’t realize that I have the disease, and if I tell them they don’t believe me, because the medication controls the symptoms, and reinforces it for the climbs”, he explains. “But when it’s time to rest, at camp, I reduce the dose of dopamine and the symptoms appear clearly, the crashes, the tremors, and then people are impressed, even more so when, the next day, I return to the trail normally”, he adds, pointing out that, if in the beginning he avoided talking about his condition, today he shows it without any problems: “I don’t feel ashamed anymore, I feel proud”, he says.
For director and mountaineer Rafael Duarte, the film goes far beyond a good story about overcoming problems. “The title Awakening comes from awakening to a new life, to self-care, to intense contact with nature”, he explains. “Each person will experience the film differently, but if people leave the cinema wanting to move around and seek a more active and outdoor life, our objective will have been achieved”, he points out.
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