Saturday, June 29, 2013

Living in Paradise with Parkinson's

When you get diagnosed with Parkinson's it isn't a complete surprise. Chances are you have been living with unexplained symptoms for a very long time. Most likely there were many dismissive friends, doctors, and family members who took your complaining as just signs of getting old, an inability to keep up, or just more bitching. Nobody likes a complainer, so you live with your body, until the signs are so damn apparent it becomes a chronic condition with a name.

Being diagnosed doesn't change much. You still have the same damn aches, pains, and twitches, only now you have a convenient name for it. Doctors are still dismissive, because they can't really do all that much, and they get tired of saying that each time you are forced to see them to renew your medication. Friends and family continuously express concern, but there just isn't anything much they can say or do. Nobody but you can be proactive, and only you who knows how very little can be done.

I have a brutal stiff neck, like I always had when I slept wrong, had too much happening at work, etc. except now it won't go away. True too for the back pains, and innumerable other physical discomforts. Parkinson's means you live with it all. An endless loop of adjustment. You live with it, because you want to live, and the fact is you have no other viable choices. 

Parkinson's is a possessive proper noun, which owns your ass, and there ain't much more to it.