The Day After

A few people have asked me what I did the day after my diagnosis. An interesting question and I'll tell you the answer in a bit, but first I want to tell you what I did the day of my diagnosis. My fiancé was with me at the tail-end of the marathon doctor's appointment where I received the wonderful news that I had Parkinson's. As we walked out of the medical building, I remember it being cold and sunny; he looked at me and asked what I wanted to do. I believe he offered some options, but I have absolutely no recollection of what they were. I do remember what I said. I'm sure that I must have had the deer-in-headlights look as I answered, "I want you to take me to a bar and buy me a shot, neat of course, of their most expensive single-malt scotch. But first I want to buy a pack of cigarettes." To his credit, he didn't question the cigarettes part, I hadn't had one in two years. He just put his arm around my shoulders (come to think of it, he must have had the same deer-in-headlights look as me) and walked with me out of the day of and into the day after.

Yes, so the day after. I went to work. It was a Friday; I remember that because there was a board meeting and the board meetings of the large non-profit where I worked were always on Friday. When I've told that story some people are surprised that I managed not to fall apart and actually managed to get to work that day. Well, what else was I supposed to do? I was the director of finance and we had a board meeting. I had to be there.

The "fall apart" part had to wait until Saturday. But even then, I think I only fell apart for an afternoon. I remember lying in bed and thinking, okay, now you can go for it. And I did, I cried for awhile, maybe an hour. Then I got bored. This isn't to say that I am just oh so together, because I have fallen apart plenty since then, but I do find it interesting how us human types have so many different means of dealing with really sucky news. And god knows I would have plenty of opportunity to learn the extent of those means in the years following the day after.