Acceptance...or not

I go back and forth with my acceptance of Parkinson’s disease. When I was first diagnosed, there was a part of me that was just glad to finally have a reason for some of the symptoms. At first, I actually felt a little less weird…because now I had a reason why I sometimes peed on myself and why my hand wouldn’t stop shaking. I could stop thinking I had become clumsy because I would fall down or lose my balance at odd times. It wasn’t me, it was the Parkinson’s.

That feeling didn’t last long. After a few weeks on the medicine, I was frustrated. I was coming home from work and getting into bed almost immediately. I felt like it took all my energy just to get through my workday. Weekends weren’t much better. The only way to make it through a whole day was to take a nap after taking the Requip. I thought it would get better after a few months on the meds, and I did learn to adjust a little. Occassionally, my boss would let me work from home, and on those days, I could stay up and do supper and bedtime with the kids. So that helped sometimes. But I was still mad about the things that I felt Parkinson’s was taking away from me.

I just wanted to be normal! I wanted to have energy. I wanted to be like the other moms who went to work everyday and still were able to cook dinner when they came home and tuck their kids in at night. I wanted to be able to clean my house…yes, really. I like a clean house and I really don’t mind cleaning. But I hated seeing my husband do it all. It made me feel like a failure. We started planning things around me…if we were going to do something on Saturday that might wear me out, we wouldn’t do anything on Sunday. I hated it! I wanted to be able to go to the zoo or the water park with my family without being worn out for days afterwards or without us having to leave early because “Mommy’s too tired.” I wanted to feel better. I wanted to be healthy.

And I wanted to have a baby…