Laughing with Parkinson's Disease

My oldest son pulled a jar of unopened salsa from the pantry shelf and he read the writing on the lid out loud, "Shake before opening."

He handed the jar to me and said, "Hold this a while, Dad."

Everyone in the room, including myself, burst out laughing. Why?

I have Parkinson's Disease.

I was diagnosed nearly ten years ago at the age of 38.

We discovered a long time ago, as a family, that the best way to deal with anything like this is to just accept it, laugh it off, and go on living. Oh of course the kids realize the serious nature of my illness, but why dwell on it?

One time recently we were all working on dinner preparation, and the food cooking in the oven smelled wonderful. We had eaten a light lunch that day and we were hungry.

My oldest daughter said, "Oh that smells so good! I'm drooling!"

My oldest son said, "I'm drooling too!"

My youngest daughter said, "Me too!"

And my youngest son said, "I'm drooling too."

And then I jumped in with, "Yeah, I'm drooling too."

And my wife reminded me, "But you're always drooling." Again, we laughed.

For the most part, I'm still staying pretty active, and weekends will often find me out in the backyard playing football or ultimate Frisbee or baseball with the kids. When I've timed my medication just right, I'm really "on" and can keep up with the kids; when I do not time the medication just right, I can be really off. But my kids don't mind. They understand I have good times and not so good times. And we keep playing.

It's important to me that my children grow up in a happy home, and I'm generally cheerful around the house. My goal, I think, is to make their home life as normal and happy as possible so that years from now, when they look back on their childhood, they'll think of the happy times with Dad, and any thoughts about Parkinson's Disease will be more of an after-thought.

So we play games together outside; we play games together inside; we all play musical instruments, so we'll often be found playing duets or trios or quartets together. We have so much fun doing what we call "Family Band."

We tell stories, we tell jokes, we spend time together with the television turned off, and we laugh. Parkinson's Disease does not dominate the conversation. In fact, actually, it rarely appears unless I'm unusually off.

When I was entering my teen years, we lived with my grandmother. She had Parkinson's Disease, and I watched her bravely face everything that came her way. One Sunday afternoon, she went outside with her walker for a little stroll. I went out a few minutes later to go to youth group at church. Grandma was lying on the grass in the front yard. Her walker had tumbled over, and apparently she had fallen.

"Grandma, are you all right?" I asked.

"Oh yes. I thought I would just lie here and catch a few rays," she said, before breaking out in laughter.

Life is too short to take ourselves so seriously. Life is too short to let adversity get us down for long.

When I was young and saw my grandmother smile in spite of her illness, I always wondered how I would respond if something like that happened to me. Now I know.

These days, I wake up smiling. I can laugh. And though I sometimes feel down, I'm generally cheerful and enthusiastic. This thing might be breaking my body, but it's not going to break my spirit.

For me, faith in God is where I find my strength. He provides a peace and joy that can't be explained in any other way. He enables me to laugh and to realize that this isn't the end of the world.

It's only the beginning.