HEY MISTER PARKINSON

HEY MISTER PARKINSON! Well, it's official. We are living together. After seeing my neurologist today I've decided to lease a room in my brain to an uninvited guest. I wouldn't say that it was somebody of my own choosing but there are some things in life that we have absolutely no control over and this is one of them. The day I finally realized and accepted the fact that I was going to have to live with Mister Parkinson for the rest of my life was the day that my life started to make any sense. Before that, I was going through the motions of what I thought life was supposed to be like with Parkinson's disease. All the neurologists and the textbooks and every possible point of view that you can imagine were telling me that if I was diagnosed with Parkinson's then it would be a slow physical and mental decline, time factor unknown. And, that's because everybody's symptoms are different and react in totally different ways but there was no doubt that if you were diagnosed with Parkinson's that there was never going to be an improvement and there was only going to be a decline which is a pretty grim assessment for anybody to take on board. And yet for some reason, it doesn't mean anything to me anymore because, in the early years of my diagnosis, it seemed like a far-off distant galaxy that I was never going to reach. But as I get older and after all these years you would have thought that I could see the end of my journey looming somewhere in the distance. And whilst I realize that I will eventually end up as a vegetable in a turnip patch, with very few dopamine cells, it's the furthest thought from my mind right now. Because now I am planning for my future and the things I am going to do with the rest of my life because this time is my time and is so precious to me. So that I am going to get as much pleasure and enjoyment out of it as I possibly can and not just feel sorry for myself because self-pity isn't me in any way or shape or form. The day that I start thinking like that is the day I decline and give up and that's the last thing on my mind right now. And, if only I could make it compulsory to think proactively like that I would, but unfortunately what we tend to do is narrow our horizons and stop thinking about what we can't do instead of thinking about the things that we are still able to do. For example, I have always enjoyed playing competitive sports but they have been taken away from me by Parkinson's one by one by one until the only one that I am able to play now to any reasonable level of competition is crown green bowls. But when I am unable to play that then I will look around for something else to do because I must never stop trying. And that is the point I am trying to make about living with Parkinson's. It's all about evolving with the illness and understanding the fact that you have to be able to make the best of what you have, and what you can still do especially in the early years of your journey because if you don't then it's gone. And that's because we stop thinking and we wait, and we hope something will be found to save us from this miserable existence of Parkinsonism. But, unfortunately, if you live in the real world, as I do, the reality isn't like that and you could be waiting forever. And while there's nothing wrong in being optimistic reality will tell you otherwise. So my life has evolved to fit the reality that I find myself in, and the reality is that I have to live life right now.