Dave Ciaccio, Parkinson’s Nebraska Board Chair
In this season of gift giving, I thought it might be good to spend a little time reflecting on my diagnosis and how it might actually be reframed as a ‘gift’ in my life.
My first thought was that surely these two concepts couldn’t go together. Parkinson’s? A gift? It had to be an oxymoron. But as I jot down the opportunities that Parkinson’s has given me, I see just how big of a gift it actually is.
We receive gifts in all episodes of life whether we realize it or not. We receive gifts every day that we are alive.
The same is true of living with Parkinson’s. Yes, this too presents us with many new opportunities in life if we would only dig a little deeper to find them. Here are a few that I found:
- How concerned & caring family & friends can be
- A strengthened spiritual life requiring me to trust in God
- Dependency on others resulting in greater humility
- Peace of mind knowing I am doing all I can in the daily fight
- Admiration for the strength and fortitude of those in the struggle with me
- New friends who support & encourage me
- Amazement at the wisdom of my doctors & therapists
- Improved physical conditioning and completing a mini-marathon
- Opportunities to help others on their journey to live with optimism
Optimism is a choice in our journey with Parkinson’s. It’s not an easy choice, but one all the same. Determination to not let this disease defeat us or determine who we are is essential. I understand now that I need to not only live with the diagnosis, but to thrive despite it.
Dr. Viktor Frankl was a prisoner in German concentration camps during WWII. His mother, father, brother and pregnant wife were all killed in the camps. He lost everything, he said, that could be taken from a prisoner, except one thing. “The last of the human freedoms, to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
I hope you will choose to see the gifts all around you this season. Wishing you peace and a Merry Christmas!