One In A Million

                                                                                  ONE IN A MILLION

February 13th, 2017 is my Parkinson’s diagnosis’s anniversary, a day I would prefer to forget, and for the first time since that date, February 13th was just another day. It was days later that I realized that day had come and gone, just like any other day. For those who were with me for the first few months after diagnosis, this is really an amazing feat.

One of the things that really got under my skin when I was first diagnosed was all the pictures that I saw on Parkinson’s disease websites. Everybody smiling and laughing, I thought to myself and out loud, “this is B.S. !!!. Here I was struggling just to put a sentence together without tearing up and these people look like they just won the lottery, these websites are using models I thought. I asked numerous people, “how do I become one those happy smiling PWP’s (people with Parkinson’s), because I refused to believe it was possible. Why in the world would someone with a progressive and debilitating disease be laughing and smiling?

And with time came the answer, don’t let the disease define you, you define the disease. I have made it the sole purpose in my life to fight back, whether it is home improvement projects, repairing and maintaining my toys, and of course playing with those toys, my life is push, push, push. But it is more than that, I am surrounded by positive supportive people who cheer me on as I pursue my quest to be happy.

So, how do I define the disease? For me I have accepted Parkinson’s as a challenge and what a challenge it is. But, by taking Parkinson’s head on I feel a sense of accomplishment every day. What was once easy is now hard, and what was once hard is now almost impossible, I said almost. My willingness to tackle any challenge has provided me with a great deal of frustration, but in turn many rewards. I am a very competitive person and I’ll be damned if I lose this fight, I have worked too long and too hard, to allow PD to slow me down, challenge accepted.

How committed am I, so much so that I went out and got a tattoo, for me that is commitment! I thought long and hard about getting a PD tattoo and finally decided to pull the trigger. I sent the tattoo artist my idea and he responded asking me what this tattoo symbolizes, and I said without thinking,” it is a celebration of my fight against Parkinson’s”. As the old Virginia Slims commercial used to say, “You’ve come a long way baby”. This is not an endorsement for cigarettes, but I’m smokin’, say cheese!

By Mark Hitechew

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.