A healthy sense of humour truly is good medicine for an unhealthy body. Laughter releases endorphins, which provide a natural pain reliever. I’m not sure how much laughing I would have to do to equal the effectiveness of two tablets of Tylenol 3’s, but it sounds like a fun experiment to try. Maybe I should rent a bunch of comedy videos and do an in- depth study…

But as much as keeping up my sense of humor on this insane journey called life with Parkinson’s has helped me to cope with the constant pain and the inability to do much of anything, I believe that working on my perspective of life in general has been my best tool for getting up every morning and doing what I can.

I have put a lot of conscious effort into maintaining a realistic perspective on my problems. I’ve gleaned a bit of wisdom from the writings of Michael J. Fox, who is likely the most famous person living with Parkinson’s. He reminds us that we all have problems, and he compares them to hammers. He said that we all have our bag of hammers to deal with, and Parkinson’s just happens to be the one he got.

I don’t quite understand the analogy that life is like a bag of hammers, but I understand the sentiment. I have come up with an analogy from the world of gardening. Everybody gets a pile of – shall we call it “manure” dropped into his or her garden. Same manure, different pile – that sort of thing. We have a few options here. You could choose to sit on your pile and complain about the smell. You could spend your time looking at everyone else’s pile and comparing them to yours. Depending on your outlook on life – optimistic or pessimistic, you could see your pile as half full or half empty. Or you could get off the pile, spread it out on your garden, and plant some flowers.

I know that life is much more complex than that, and I don’t pretend to have it all together in my life. I have no idea where this disease will take me, and it is probably better that I don’t know. For all I know, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Or I could receive Divine Healing in answer to my prayers and the prayers of my family and friends. I know that God can and does bestow physical healing; I just have no idea how He chooses who gets healed of what and when. It has taken a bit of soul searching, some excellent counselling, and a lot of prayer, but I am starting to find the balance between hope and acceptance.

Watching shows like World Vision has also been a huge help in putting my problems into perspective. Sure – I am in pain, and I can’t work anymore, but I receive disability benefits, and I have an incredible support network of family and friends. I have access to modern health care, and I have hope that there will be new development in treatments or maybe even a cure within my lifetime. If I had to deal with my health problems plus the poverty and lack of medical care that 80% of the human population who are given the “bag of hammers” or “pile of manure” of being born in a Third World country have been dealt, I have no idea how I would cope.

So I do what I can, and I am trying very hard to accept that living with this nasty progressive disease is my new normal, and that is just how it is right now.