Reflections in a Puddle
 
PD is a disease that affects us all differently and that it does so at different rates and to different degrees, so that we all interact with it individually.

Everyone on the site is, to some degree or other, searching for answers, for themselves or for others. These answers are not forthcoming and most of the questions we ask we can live with unanswered.

But the Billion Dollar question "WILL THERE BE A CURE IN TIME TO HELP ME?" remains. How we react to it is how we "survive", and that reaction is unique to each individual. It has nothing to do with how far down the PD track we are. It is about the strength of our spirit.

I am not sure how I react to the Billion Dollar question personally. Sometimes I think I do the ostrich dance, (Take a step to the left, take a big breath, head in sand... repeat as necessary in time to your favourite music and you eventually end up where you started). Sometimes I read all that I can on the subject of PD. Sometimes I try to help people (not always as successfully as I would like), and sometimes I just "live" life.

And I think my conclusion is : I will wait for the cure, but as I am waiting I shall try to enjoy life.

This individual awareness of time running out is not unique to PD, but occurs with many degenerative illnesses. Perhaps it is the first time we confront our own mortality……… here and now,. not in the future, and we conclude that "now is the hour". Now is the time to do things, now and not later. Now is the time to bungee jump, go para-sailing, learn knitting, tell someone you love them., ride in a gondola. But, hang on, "now" always was that time. That is the truth that we all forget. The awareness may be highlighted by illness, not necessarily PD, but the time to take control is now, not at some unspecified date in the future. Illness simply sharpens the images of what is or is not possible.

There is a great truth in the words of the last two verses of "The Rose"

It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.
It's the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance.
It's the one who won't be taken,who cannot seem to give,
and the soul afraid of dyin' that never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely and the road has been to long,
and you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes the rose.
 

Go and enjoy life, it “ain’t too bad”...
Bron

 

Bron (from Melbourne, Australia) was diagnosed with PD in 1997; she will celebrate her 60th birthday in February.  Widowed in Oct. 2003, her husband had "Diffuse Lewy Body" disease.  Bron is a former Math teacher and has authored or co-authored 12 math textbooks. Bron has two grown children and a granddaughter.