Columns

When I think of a warrior, I think of Mel Gibson and the role he played in the movie “Braveheart.” Gibson played the main character, Sir William Wallace, a Scottish knight. He was a warrior for his homeland Scotland, fighting for freedom against the English.  Although…

My previous eight columns addressed the CHRONDI Creed, a plan anyone can put in place when seeking to live better with a chronic disease. The CHRONDI Creed is challenging to put in place as a way of life. It takes courage to face life honestly and to…

You’ve probably read articles with titles like, “10 Things Not to Say to a Person with Parkinson’s.” These typically include statements like, “But you don’t look sick,” or perhaps, “My Uncle Nero had that, and his arms fell off.” You’ve heard the possible and the far-fetched, the comments…

Jean Mellano, a fellow contributor at Parkinson’s News Today, recently wrote a column about how this disease keeps taking bits and pieces of us — our abilities, our control of self — and leaves less and less of us day by day. In a reply to a…

Identity, the “I” in CHRONDI Creed, refers to the process of finding a health-fostering identity in the face of a chronic disease that has stolen things we loved to do and caused the death of self. When everything I loved to do was taken from me,…

  I’ve rarely had the thought, “Why me?” Does this mean that I’ve signed my life over to Parkinson’s disease? Is it a sign that I’ve given up? Last week at my boxing class, I was punching a bag when I heard laughter coming from the…

“I fight for my health every day in ways that most people don’t understand. I’m not lazy. I’m a warrior!” –Unknown Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a disease of loss. It chips away one’s ability to perform seemingly mindless tasks. Examples of what I have lost to Parkinson’s…

You ever try to go back to the way things used to be? Try to think the way you used to think when distractions didn’t compete for your attention? When you had some semblance of  “normality”? Things seemed somewhat organized or orderly and most things made…

Death, the “D” in the CHRONDI Creed, refers more to the death of our self-identity than it does to physical death. As we endure the long battle with a chronic disease and deal with a gradual progression in symptoms, a loss of function occurs. I touch upon…

Everything’s not all right or OK. Like it or not, we have a chronic disease that won’t go away. Our days are consumed with uncontrollable thoughts; they ravage our minds, threaten our souls, and grasp for our spirits. Will we ever be “us” again — those beings who…