I just took a moment to think about where to go next with this thought. Do I revisit the old joke about normal being a setting on a washing machine or take a more cynical approach and say that normal flew out the window years ago. The reality may be that our normal is constant uncertainty and change. We try to lead regular lives but my husband’s diagnosis of PD continuously reminds us that we are not the ones in charge, this illness is.

Our lives are somewhat scheduled, we have meals at set times to not interfere with his meds. He exercises daily and needs time set aside around that to rest. We have developed a routine that works for us until something happens to throw us off. It may be an appointment scheduled at a difficult time, a fall or viral infection, issues with our home that need to be addressed, even one of his low energy days can disrupt our normal routines. This Parkinson’s journey is never predictable which makes it easy to see why our well defined schedule often gets tossed.

What scares me the most is that when new things happen within his diagnosis, they are at first horrendous, then move to difficult and before you know it, they have become a part of our normal. We adapt and move on. I honestly don’t know if I would recognize what we once thought of as normal anymore. No, let me take that back, we have 5 minutes of normal each and every day. It’s that time in the morning when I roll over and we cuddle before getting out of bed. It is just us holding each other in love that reminds me of why I do this. As long as I still have this little piece of normal in my life, I guess I can deal with the rest of the day being abnormally chaotic and crazy.