Thank you PD. You made me become me. I couldn’t have done it without you. I was a regular Walter Mitty. I would imagine being born in another country maybe India or Africa. I would look and think the way they did and my experiences and beliefs would be the same as theirs. Sometimes I would fantasize that I was a famous movie star or athlete or artist, a scientist, inventor, or the president. That I could kick the bully’s ass. That I was the guy that got the girl. If I liked a character in a book, oh boy, I was gone for days or weeks at a time. My reality was internal, defined by the wishful thinking of my mind. Then along came Parkinson’s and cut through all my fantasies and made me face reality. Made me accept me as me. I am a person with Parkinson’s, a progressive incurable disease that makes me feel miserable now and is only going to get worse. Now my reality is external, determined by the imposition of physical PD symptoms on my body.
It started with Restless Leg Syndrome. Then the tremors began. My neurologist said I had Parkinson’s Disease. I went into his office feeling good about myself and came out as a disease diagnosis. I thought I could live my life without ever taking meds. When I had a headache I would get the aspirin bottle, warn the headache that I would take a pill if it didn’t go away and it usually did. I now have to accept, see myself, as someone who will have to take multiple pills every day for the rest of my life.
Movement. This is where my story changes. I was a dancer and loved to perform. An actor and loved to be on stage acting a part, playing a role. Young and healthy, skipping down streets, living life at the highest level. PD gave me a new identity. No longer able to move freely and easily, I am now one of the movement challenged. I am handicapped, needing a walker for uneven terrain and long distance walks and am starting to use a wheel chair. I never imagined, couldn’t conceive of needing a wheel chair to get around. Feet don’t fail me now. Let me once again be able to sing and dance down the street just one more time like Gene Kelly in Singing In The Rain.
I now dream of a life without tremors, of not falling, and of being able to walk. I hope for medical breakthroughs to prevent the progression of PD and for a cure. No longer Walter Mitty, I am part of a very real group composed of every person who ever suffered with the miserable disease that is Parkinson’s.
