Time and Healing

Time is a subject worthy of the brightest minds and deepest thinkers. It is a human construct as well as a real dimension of the universe, when studied in physics. I am addressing the idea of how time functions and moves in regard to living well with a disease. Let’s jump into this piece  

We’ve all been sick with colds, flues and small accidents that require a recovery period. My experience is that we rightfully expect to heal and go back to normal. We expect our stuffy nose to clear up and to breathe again the way we did before we caught the cold. We drink extra fluids, rest more and have a clear picture of where we are heading during recovery.

Going back to normal health in these cases is an intention that can usually be fulfilled.

What Andy and I have noticed about Parkinson’s disease and we have come to believe is true about incurable and chronic illnesses is that this model of getting back to normal, doesn’t serve healing as well as going forward into something new.

Parkinson’s disease doesn’t present a clear path of action that leads the patient back to what they’d experienced before. We learned that being willing to go forward– into the mystery- is the best way to live in these circumstances. It is only human to long for something we enjoyed in the past, but living well with disease requires going forward not backward.

Parkinson’s is hard because losses occur that don’t usually return- loss of smell, coordination, ability to move easily. Changes happen in speech, swallowing, and sometimes in the thinking abilities and brain.

Parkinson’s challenges the patient to adapt and adapt, again and again.

Having a loved one with Parkinson’s requires a commitment to be with them where they are now and to move forward into wellness and being well requires letting go of longing for what used to be. The silver lining of all this is that we have found that healing forward is more fun than trying to go back.

             Andy loves to read. His reading preferences run towards nonfiction, biography, philosophy and world news. In the twenty years of living with Parkinson’s, he’s gone from regular books to regular books with bean bag weights to hold them in place to large print books to a Kindle where the font could be adjusted to any size and finally to audio books.

              I see this kind of progression, compensating according to abilities, to be common as people age but it happens faster with symptoms from a disease. Living well requires patients and caregivers to become the most creative and flexible people as living in the present reality and moving along with all the changes can become second nature.

              Exclusively looking at and longing for the past is actually a small death.
              Accepting what is happening now and being willing to move forward with that truth is actually the best of life, with or without disease in the picture.
             Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” Living with disease may be hard but we have found that there is always a way forward to living well.