I used to have a vocation that demanded I show up every day and give 100% while I was there. I still have a job like that, but now I've added a new full-time job: studying my disease.
It's ironic. Those of us who have the least amount of energy in reserve are also the ones called upon to expend the most energy working two full-time jobs.
I guess I have two choices:
1) Work just one full-time job and let Parkinson's Disease happen to me like a hurricane relentlessly pounding on my door in increasing severity every day. Let other people control my health plan. Accept PD as my new lifestyle and let it in my door as if it were that one family member we all dread spending time with because they just won't leave. Resign myself to entertaining PD during its permanent, and demanding, visit.
OR I can
2) Look PD in its wicked evil eye, put on the boxing gloves, and take it head-on. Study it. Build a mental picture of me without PD. Use healing words, think healing thoughts, eat healing foods, participate in healing exercises. Find out how other people with PD are managing their symptoms through food, exercise, glutathione treatments, essential oils and other holistic approaches. Work at it like it's a full-time job. Work at it like it's my first priority full-time job since I have two now. One job pays the bills, and one might save my life.
PD...it's requiring action and a new commitment from me. If I don't fill the space in my life with this new job, PD will seep in like a silent noxious gas, filling every corner with suffocating invisible fumes.
PD, you will never be my friend. You are not welcome here. I'm declaring war right here, right now. No longer do I say, "I have Parkinson's Disease." Instead, I'll say I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, or I exhibit PD symptoms. I don't claim this disease as my own, even though I might suffer today with symptoms that look like PD.
I'm at war, but I need help. I need the energy of my family and friends to infuse me regularly. I need the prayer support of people who love me. I need encouragement and new ideas from everyone I know. I need to be reminded that I am not alone. On some days I might even need to be carried. But, hear this: I am not pulling over and stopping. I am not giving up. I am not rolling over.
I'm fighting.
chttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo1VInw-SKc
"Starting right now I'll be strong...and I don't really care if nobody else believes 'cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me." Rachel Platten, Fight Song
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