“In 1998 our family was complete. There was a two-month period where we breathed an ‘ahhh’ … At the same time, I developed some dexterity problems in my right hand and a limp with my right foot. It was annoying. Especially after consulting three physicians and coming up with terms like ‘left brain mass’ or ‘RSD.’ One day I took a break to see a UW specialist. With some simple in-clinic exercises, he diagnosed the crazy problem. ‘You have Parkinson’s’ he said, handing me a pamphlet on how to live with Parkinson’s disease. The word was so ominous I could not absorb it … One night, I remembered the Parkinson’s handbook, so I cracked it open, but was totally unprepared for what I read. The handbook said I would eventually lose control of my muscles, drool, develop dementia, and other lovely characteristics. But (I remember reading), I would be grateful for Velcro instead of buttons and could ask someone to cut up my food. It felt like the time that I ran into a board sticking out the back of a truck. A stunned feeling blanketed me. The physical world around me became surreal and seemingly far away. Without doubting it in the slightest, I wanted to die right then. Paul held me while we both cried. But then an amazing thing happened. I awoke the next morning and memories of the prior day flooded in, but I also took a quick inventory of my body: the right hand worked, the left hand, the right foot, etc. The sun shone brightly. I realized that at least today – maybe just today – I would be okay. THEN I also realized that THIS is what living one day at a time was about! It was so simple, but had been SO illusive. I frequently had said I’d been living one day at a time, but I hadn’t actually considered the day to be any more special than the day before. I had taken those 24 hours for granted. My belief that my attitude controlled the next 24 hours had led me to consider the unwelcome events as exceptions to life, rather than LIFE ITSELF. These big ol’ hairy glitches in what was surely God’s happy plan for me I had treated like toxic waste – donning protective gear while going about the process of removal. I’d done it for years! All my life! Upon hearing something displeasing from a friend, I’d even remove them! When something had gone wrong on the home front, for example, I had thought, ‘what a crappy day,’ then wrote off the entire day, week, or even year, until the situation was ‘fixed.’ When someone had expressed an opinion I didn’t agree with, I would naturally acknowledge it, but in my head I would dismiss the opinon with, ‘what a dink’ or ‘what is wrong with them!’ If I could permanently dismiss a friend from my life or make an entire week a wash because of something not to my liking, how could I tackle a death or illness? If I had supposedly been living one day at a time, yet had dismissed the last five days, where did that leave me? I’ve never been a wiz at math, but even I couldn’t make THAT work. The rules about life I had used prior to my 24-hour discovery simply weren’t congruent. I believed I was missing a piece.’ I finally discovered that piece a couple years ago after the death of my dad. In the sixties, he had worked in a gas station for many years where he had been exposed to asbestos while repairing brakes. It germinated 30 years later and he became ill from mesothelioma. Now I don’t know if it was the lousy way our family sometimes communicates or my own denial, but prior to his death no one actually said he was going to die. In hindsight, I should have realized that all the signs together formed an undeniably fatal situation. But I operated on the basis of my previously described exception beliefs. One short, powerful word describes my dismissal of more powerful events and people that didn’t yield to ready extraction: DENIAL. In order to accommodate my dad’s terminal illness, I had to either deny or ignore Dad, which I could not. Or I had to deny the illness, and did. Yet, despite denying it with all my being, Dad still died.’ So my diagnosis of Parkinson’s first shot my exception / denial belief system full of holes, then later helped clarify the meaning of Dad’s death. I slowly began living in the here and now. It has been a challenge, combined with the depression that I fight, causing repeated swings from fun-loving, secure, and artful to suspicious and unimaginative.” Little Book of Big Exceptions
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 06:04:38 +0000
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