Do I Really Have a Problem?
March 4, 2022
by Dave Ciaccio, Board Chair
As I write this, the Russian military continues to impose unimaginable hardships on the people of Ukraine. Some trek through subfreezing temperatures looking for refuge, others tell their children why daddy can’t come with us. They shelter on cold sidewalks at the border, in basements of abandoned buildings, and seated in dark train cars parked at the station.
I sit here thousands of miles away in a warm house. My children and grandchildren are safe and I have food. I eat with a tremor that will never go away and when I stand up from the table my balance is off. I have friends who are confined to a wheelchair. Our thinking is impaired.
These are the painful facts of Parkinson’s Disease.
They too are hardships. They too can be unimaginable. But they don’t hold us hostage. We’re free to live our lives in the face of it. To eat dinner with our families and find refuge wherever we are.
I ask myself, do I really have a problem? Then I make the choice to go on living because so many others can’t.