“Where are your passions. Quite some time ago, a co-worker asked me this question in response to what appeared to him to be my unflappable demeanor, “What do you get excited about?” Was his follow-up question, Two simple questions, while at first I thought were pretentious, would haunt me. Little did he know that I had just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
For a long time, my wife Lisa has been encouraging me to share with others what I write; for the same amount of time I have been pushing back. On Valentine’s Day, I decided that going-pro was the only way I could honor her request by publishing my first post; to an audience of one.
I have been blessed in so many ways that words cannot express. I have people in my life that have chosen to journey with me. Some will simply ask my lovely wife how I am doing or how I am feeling, others will take a more direct approach. Either way, I have something that not everyone has; a circle of care. This phrase, borrowed from an organization that has proven to be instrumental in my care, changed my outlook on how the delivery of care can alter the trajectory of the progression of a degenerative disease. I have a loving family, a neurologist that is nationally recognized as an expert in the treatment of Parkinson’s, and because of my wife’s health insurance, I receive life changing medications at an affordable price. It should come as no surprise, given these as a foundation, that I believe with all my heart that 2016, will be my best year ever.
Every now and then, I will hear a comment and I will immediately internalize it. “Fear can drive the decision making process.” My initial response was “of course it does!” but just by changing one little word in my response from “does” to “can” completely re-frames this statement from an “absolute certainty” to “one option out of many”. If I were to be confronted by someone brandishing a weapon who had the intention of robbing me, fear could be a factor in my decision making process. The same can be said if I were to simply lose my wallet and my phone while traveling, its logical that fear could become a factor in my decision making process. The list of scenarios could go on and on, but I think that you get the point. Fear can drive the decision making process; but does it have to? Is it the only factor that drives the decision making process? Can multiple divergent emotions simultaneous drive the decision making process? Consider the highly trained Special Forces military professional that has been told that he is part of a team whose mission it is to neutralize a well-protected terrorist. Is he fearful to the point that it drives his decision making process? Or what about the firefighter that has to enter a building to rescue a family and their pet cat? Are his actions driven by fear? It would be incomprehensible to believe that either of these people, in these circumstances, have been able to eliminate every inclining of fear. Could it be that all people, not just some, are capable of choosing to let some other emotion or characteristic, like valor, self-sacrifice or duty to others, trump fear? It is possible that everyone has the capability to work through fear by accessing their training, or an innate desire to help someone in need, or something else deep inside themselves? The severity of the challenge doesn’t change, the danger to ourselves is not diminished, yet we find a way to control the only thing that can be controlled; the internal emotional response, fear, to an outward threat.
I barely remember the person that I once was, pre-PD, but I do know all too well the person that I was becoming. The edginess and tenacity with which I faced challenges, no faced life, was becoming a distant memory. In the past, fear was nothing more than another four-letter word. Now, if I allow it to, trepidation permeates my thoughts. “What if I can’t…work anymore… walk anymore…drive anymore…type anymore.” How will my family survive? My thoughts raced to the direst of circumstances and the most devastating outcomes.