I had a good day today. After a series of not so good days I had a good day. Not good enough to make me want to sing Good Day Sunshine but a day good enough to happily hum a soft song. I was a little shaky in the morning but not too bad. Made breakfast and did my usual. Nothing different from any other day and then sometime mid afternoon I realized that I wasn’t sharking. No tremors and I felt pretty good. Dare I say I felt normal. No shakes, no fatigue, no misery, good gait, decent balance. No Parkinson’s. I don’t know how it happened or came about. It kind of snuck on me without me realizing it. What’s wrong with me? I mean what’s right with me.
I tried but couldn’t understand why I was having a good day just as I sometimes don’t know why I have bad days. I know that if I don’t sleep, or am stressed, or overexert myself I may have a bad day but sometimes it seems to just happen on its own. I know what to avoid but how do you make a good day happen? Does PD have a mind of its own? Comes and goes as it pleases with no discernible rhyme or reason.
I remembered what it meant to be a body at rest. A wonderful feeling and memory from the past. I was excited. Could it be that I no longer shook, my tremors gone, my body from now on at rest. After all I had Isaac Newton’s mighty first law of motion in my favor. A body at rest will remain at rest unless an outside force acts on it. Later that day my tremors returned without me knowing why. Is Parkinson’s more powerful than Newton? I thought my body would stay at rest but I forgot that Newton also stated that for every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction. The relief was welcome while it lasted.
Some definitions here. A good day is a day with only minor manageable symptoms. An okay day means medium manageable physical symptoms. A bad day is the full PD onslaught, strong physical symptoms and mental misery.
Most days are somewhere between good and really bad and sometimes I can influence how I think of them. I don’t think I can turn a really bad day into a good day but sometimes I can make it not so bad. So much of how a person feels is up to them. I don’t mean you can turn a miserable day into a great day but you may be able to make it a little less bad. Influence a not so good day into becoming a not too bad day. Take a bit of the edge off it. Positive thinking is a mental attitude in which you expect good and favorable results by creating beneficial thoughts that are transformed into reality. It’s a two step process: think positive thoughts and then make them affect your mood. A positive mind looks for the good in any situation. I admit, easy to say, harder to do.
I am not going to give you a tutorial on how to think positive thoughts and how to turn thought into reality. There are many don’t worry be happy self help positive thinking guides and gurus to choose from. Take your pick. The point is you are in charge of and can control your thoughts to some degree. Try to think positive thoughts. I say try because it is not as easy as just breath deeply and do it but your thoughts do come from you. Don’t just wait for a good day to happen on its own. Do what you can to improve your day and make it better. One way is to think of things that make you happy and expect to feel good. What would make me happy is a cure for Parkinson’s and if I can’t have that I will settle for having a good day.
