Possibilities

This year has been nothing short of transformative. A period of time that has laid every one of us bare to the vulnerability that is surrounding and inside each and every one of us. Within our man made constructs and belief systems we have been pulled up short and made to face a very deep kernel of truth that nothing is assured and life can be turned on its head in a heartbeat. I have seen real pain and fear reflected in the faces of others that before was confidence and stability. This has resonated massively within me and I’m sure it has with many others across the world who, on a daily basis, look uncertainty and mortality in the face as they quietly battle their individual disease be it mental and or physical. There is no judgement here-just a recognition and a sense of solidarity, maybe just maybe everyone feels the same fear which is a huge awakening and ultimately finds the same courage to fight another day and find the beauty within.

So, I had it all figured out!

This was going to be my year of freedom. Finally after years of being torn to shreds by Parkinson’s Disease I was going to emerge from my post-operative chrysalis and show everyone my beautiful new wings and fly in any direction my mind and heart chose. I had concerts booked, a literary festival was being considered, little breaks here and there. Of course none of this has been able to materialise and who knows when my plans will. In reality though I think my idealised view of this year was always going to be ridiculously sugar-coated with a smattering of hysterics. In truth re-winding to October 2019 (my first surgery to implant the brain electrodes) I had no road map to life beyond the surgeries at all. How was I meant to feel? I’d never visited this situation before and in truth I was terrified of surgical complications. I had to make it through for my family. This was as far as my dopamine deprived brain would stretch.

They worked their magic and gave me a chance at life again

They did and for that I will be eternally grateful as will my family. The surgeries were taxing beyond belief for me. My blood pressure was bouncing up and down after each and the frustration in trying to stabilise was a bit harrowing. My bladder stopped functioning again and each time something went wrong I gritted my teeth and prayed that I was going to get home soon. The care I received was beyond anything I ever dreamed I would receive. I mattered to them and I was held suspended in a little healing bubble until I could walk safely out of the hospital. I eventually did just that at the beginning of November and cried tears of joy upon leaving. I was going home. I was in pain, my hair had been removed but I was safe and ecstatic. I was also relatively symptom free at this point because my Parkinson’s had been stunned into submission as a consequence of surgery. I had a few weeks of blessed reprieve and within that time I slept, ate ravenously, talked, planned, ate some more and slept a whole lot more with the backdrop of a looming festive period. I could hardly believe my luck.

New Year – New Me!

Yes, but not in the way I had envisioned. We plan, we assume, we have certainty. Even those of us who really should know better! Life taught me a sharp but important lesson in this. Live in the present it really is all we have. In truth I feel like I have crammed a decade of life into a six month slot and at times that has been unbearable. The Universe has taken from me and has given in a way that leaves me breathless with its capability and I am truly, truly humbled and acquiescent in its wake.

Look a new way

As I type I have just needed to medicate… I still type…my at times cumbersome fingers flit across the well trodden trajectory of the keys. They do not fly as they once did but the very fact I can keep a physical and mental momentum to the task in hand is miraculous to me. I do feel like the butterfly in truth I touched upon before- freshly fledged with still wet wings unable to take flight so my sugar coated ambitions were not completely fantastical after all. As I move forward into the second half of the year I feel calm, mindful and hope if I can use that word. Yes, hopeful in a way that I was too scared to feel before. My neurologist has a plan. A strategy to free me from my prison. I will continue to be a student of life, a respectful life partner of Parkinson’s Disease and above all else I will start to honour myself more fully engaging all the good offerings the world has to offer and respectfully saying no to those things that do not honour me in a positive way. In so doing I will become the person I have longed to show the world all my life.