Fighting Parkinson’s, and where it all began, part 35

Seven years ago, I began doing the Parkinson’s Recipe for Recovery®. Of course, back then it did not have a name…it was just what I was doing. At the same time, I began keeping a hand-written Parkinson’s Daily Journal. It is time to share my journal with all of you. Here is my November 1, 2009 journal entry, seven years ago today.

“11/01/09. Sunday. Steven has been here this weekend, and it has been nice. I think he needed a break from the campus.

Mary and Jerry’s was a lot of fun for Halloween. At one point, there were a lot of people and there was a lot of commotion…I don’t know why, but commotion wears me out physically even though I am just sitting in a chair.

Victoria was the Corpse Bride last night. She looked great and had fun. The previous night, Genevieve had Homecoming, and she looked beautiful and very grown up.

I am dragging today. Maybe it is because tonight I will be telling dad about Parkinson’s. Not looking forward to that. Told dad about Parkinson’s and he gave me Marcie’s number at Dr. Sanchez-Ramos’ office. I will call tomorrow.”

Okay. For those of you who have been reading my Parkinson’s Daily Journal entries for the last 34 days, it is pretty clear that I had Parkinson’s. I knew and Sally knew. We had told our children, and they knew it.

I was not interested in going to a neurologist because all I had read was that the only thing that would occur was that I would be written prescriptions for medications, something I had no intention of taking.

However, then came the conversation with my dad, who immediately jumped down my throat about “self-diagnosing.” I explained my reasoning to him about what I was going to do and not going to do about the Parkinson’s, and it fell on deaf ears.

At the end of the call, I agreed to call the neurologist’s office the next day. By the way, this is the same Parkinson’s specialist who had been my mother’s neurologist up until the time she died two and one-half years before I got Parkinson’s.

All in all, it was a good thing that I went to the neurologist. Even though I knew I had Parkinson’s, and it is abundantly clear from what you have read from my Parkinson’s Daily Journal that I had Parkinson’s, some people only feel you have a disease if a doctor says you have the disease.

It is part of why you cannot worry what the other people think. After I got diagnosed (I am certain we will be reading about that over this next week), then people told me I was in denial of the disease because I refused to take the medications.

In response, I was very clear on this point:
I fully accepted that I had Parkinson’s.
I was in denial that I could not get better!

Click here for an in-depth discussion of this type of acceptance and denial.

You are worth it!!!

All my best,

Howard

It is November 1st! Today begins my November 30-day challenge 2016. Click here for some inspiration to assist you in accepting the challenge and getting started.

Please note: I will be posting one post per day through the middle of November. If you subscribe to receive email notifications when I post new blog posts and you would prefer to not receive those daily email notifications, simply send me an email at howard@fightingparkinsonsdrugfree.com, and let me know that you do not wish to receive a daily email with a link to each post. I will remove you from the list through the middle of November and add you back on the list after the middle of November. However, I still would recommend you checking the blog on a regular basis as it will contain very useful information for understanding my journey and helping with your journey.