Coping

By: Cathy Garrott

Some days I do far better at coping with the frustrations of life with PD than I do other days. I guess that’s just a part of “normal” life. What used to be, is what I considered “normal,” but all of that has changed. And now I have a “new normal” to get used to and must learn how to cope with it. I’m not alone with this kind of feeling and challenge. My sister is trying to learn how to cope with the fact that she had a stroke, and her world is turned up-side-down from the “normal” she knew up until September of 2012. I am blessed with a caregiver who has looked into what I am dealing with, and in every way he can he seeks to help me adjust to doing as much as I am able to do. He acknowledges that I will never be the “normal” I was before the PD diagnosis, but walks with me in learning the way of my “new normal.” Some things I can deal with easily at this point, others I am learning to cope with day by day. Getting use to things as they are now, and letting go of what we were comfortable with before, is a challenge EVERY person faces … whether they realize it or not right now. It can be political, health wise, relationship, temporal, or eternal.Getting along with the changes I have faced, and will face in the future, is a challenge that every new day brings my way. I am glad that I am assured that I can do all things through Him who strengthens me!