THE YEAR IS ZERO. Wednesday 2:45 pm August 17th, 1977 I will remember this day for the rest of my life because my life literally hit a brick wall and stopped. This was the day my life was blown away by a nuclear explosion in my brain. Or at least, that's how it felt to me. I had just turned off the television and I couldn't move, I couldn't speak, I couldn't think, and I was in shock. The sky was angry with me and I didn't know what to do. I had just celebrated my nineteenth birthday sixteen days before with my whole life ahead of me and I had found myself falling into a black hole with no way out. I had Parkinson's. I had to reset and start again. This was year Zero. This was the first day of the rest of my life. This was day one. I have spent most of my life wandering around in a world full of wilderness desolation, loneliness, and frustration. That's how Parkinson's can make you feel. A lost soul in a desolate place with nowhere to go. With no end in sight, no hope, and no future. But there is a way out of the wilderness and I will show you that it's possible. I called it the year Zero. This is the first year of the rest of my life. This is the year Zero. I ran into an unmovable object at terminal velocity and disintegrated into a million pieces of crystalline. The only problem was that I didn't see it because I had my eyes closed and my hands behind my back, and I was still picking up the pieces and trying to superglue them back together again. And this was the day I finally accepted I had Parkinson's disease. I had been going through the motions of how I thought life was supposed to map out. The prognosis was not looking good as there was never going to be an improvement and my general health would decline, which is a pretty grim assessment for anybody to take on board. And yet, for some strange reason, it doesn't seem to mean anything, because it feels like I'm on a space flight to a distant part of the galaxy which I will never reach. And after all these years you would have thought that I could see the end looming in the distance, and whilst I realize that I will end up there with very few dopamine cells, it's the farthest thing from my mind right now because I am planning what I am going to do in the future. This time is precious to me and I will try to get as much out of it as I possibly can and not feel sorry for myself. And, if only I could make it compulsory to think proactively like that I would, but unfortunately, we tend to narrow our horizons and start thinking about what we can't do instead of thinking about the things that we can. It's all about evolution and understanding your own capabilities because if you don't then the chance is gone. And it's because we stop thinking and we wait, and we hope that something will be found to save us from this miserable existence of ours like a cure, but, unfortunately, if you live in the real world, as I do, life is just not like that and you could be waiting around forever. And while there's nothing wrong with being optimistic, reality will tell you otherwise. So my life has evolved to fit reality, and my reality is the here and now. n by the medical world on how I should live with Parkinson's and have followed my own judgment.