I'm making lemonade

Life is an adventure.  I honestly believe that.  We are free to choose how we view our life.  I know people who are always happy.  Joy seems to be attracted to them.  I don't think they are always lucky enough to have only positive experiences, but they have a way of seeing the good in everything.  That's the kind of person I want to be.  I'm still working on it, but I'm trying my hardest to see the good in life and to make the most out of what I have in front of me.

When life gives you lemons, well, you can squint and pucker because its sour, or you can make lemonade and enjoy it the best you can.

I've been given a lemon.  Its not too sour, but its a lemon nonetheless.

I found out that I have Young Onset Parkinson's Disease.  For the last three years I've been trying to understand why the right side of my body has been slowing down and being uncooperative.  I don't have a tremor but without my levodopa, I have trouble writing, typing and moving in general.

Through my curiosity about what I'm facing, I've read everything I can get my hands on.  It seems that I've had non-motor symptoms for a long time but didn't realize it.  My sniffer's broken.  About ten years ago I started losing my sense of smell.  I would get these horrible smells stuck in my nose and was convinced that it was my house.  But no one else could smell them.  I gave up trying to figure it out.  I can't smell the candle wax burning in my house.  I'm just hoping it smells okay to everyone else.

There's another symptom that shows up before anything else that we're not going to talk about here.  **clearing my throat**  Look it up.  I'm sure you can figure it out.

Dopamine is kind of important.  Without it, you can experience sleep, speech and swallowing problems, fatigue, depression, gastrointestinal trouble, not to mention all the movement problems associated with Parkinson's.

I read Michael J. Fox's book 'Lucky Man' a few months ago and was very impressed.  He was able to show that things in life can either completely take over, or change you for the better, but ultimately, the choice is yours.  I admire his determination to not let pd take his life away from him.  I'm glad he took the time to write that book.

I've also learned that everyone responds to Parkinson's differently.  Some are tremor dominant, others like me are slow and rigid.  Gary likes to remind me that we don't know what will hit me first, the tremors or a bus.  Might as well live like there is no tomorrow.

So aside from the balance, sleep and movement problems I get to deal with, I'm happy and I love life.  I love my family, and my husband is the best boyfriend.  What more could I ask for?

Parkinson's stinks.  At least I can't smell it.

:-)