Early diagnosis ramblings

I've been reading through some old writings and I found this entry that I made when I was first diagnosed with Parkinson's.

Something a co-worker said today sent me to the writing desk after months of abstinence. She asked me, jokingly of course, if I thought her mother would notice if she used the blank check her mother had given her to help pay for a private school for her autistic son to finance a trip to Tahiti instead. I laughed and responded that I was already packed and ready to go, sarong and toothbrush in hand. Of course, that would have been everything required of the ‘old’ me (the former me, I should say, the ‘old’ me is now, not then). In days past, I would have been ready at a moments notice, requiring only the minimum of essentials. These days, I would need my medications, both of them, and of course extra bottles in case I needed a refill, my dental floss in addition to a toothbrush, I get lots of food stuck in my teeth now that I’m older. I need my vitamin supplements in case the studies that indicate they slow the progression of Parkinson’s are correct, and oh yeah, the laxatives or fiber for the constipation brought on by both the meds and the disease I need those too. And my tweezers can’t leave home without them, those little black hairs will multiply, take over and turn me into a werewolf or some other awful creature, blotting out any semblance of natural beauty. The list goes on, and I realize I am not any longer that person with whom I identify; years of taking care of kids first, financial responsibility, loss of health and energy, impaired physical capability have eroded that sense of adventure and carefree choices. I sometimes close my eyes, really tight, and try to turn back the hands of the clock and pretend that I never heard the lady neurologist say the P word in her heavily accented voice. I remember the moment the curtain first began to close, and I realized I had crossed a threshold never to be crossed again, there would be no going back, no matter what the second diagnosis. Tremor in my right hand, ‘twitching’ I called it, I guess to make it seem trivial, never guessing, really I never considered, the P disease until the doctor suggested that I had a 60% chance of the diagnosis. “Surely you suspected", she said, but really, I never did, which is funny because I am fairly medically savvy, but I never even bothered to check out my symptoms, they seemed vague and I did consider MS but never really checked that out either, neither of which is very much like me, maybe I just didn’t want to know, suspected something bad on some level but didn’t want to confirm it.

Honestly I think I assumed I was home free, that cancer would get me at age 80 ish but that I had weathered all the bad luck one person could possibly be assigned, chronic debilitating degenerative neurological disease was not part of my picture. I figured that I had put enough time between both my mother's and my sister's deaths, I was newly separated after 23 years of ‘sticking it out’, in a new love relationship and having my share of difficulties as the kids coped with the new situation and I coped with my guilt, then BAM!! I get hit between the eyes the minute I stop paying attention.