Power and Control

Parkinson’s has taught me a lot about power and control. The irony never escapes me that a person who likes power and control should get a disease that robs me of both. I thought the hardest thing to relinquish was control of my body to Parkinson’s, and then along came DBS. With DBS I relinquished power (literally) and control of my body to two wires in my brain and the battery in my chest. By the time I had the surgeries and they turned on the power I had given up power and control over my Parkinson’s.

I guess the one thing I never let go of was my need to have power and control over people. After all, I was still sure I could do things better than most as it related to problems solving my life. So, you can imagine my need to control things when I was told recently my DBS battery had four weeks of life left in it, that insurance would take at least four weeks to authorize a surgery, and that the next available surgery date was five months away, Even though they said they would figure it out I went into control mode.  Then I remembered what I had learned from Parkinson’s. In that moment, I gave up my need to control and left it in the hands of people who were working on getting it done.

Four days later I had insurance authorization, I had an appointment to meet with the surgeon, and a surgery scheduled for a week later. I am not sure I’m ready to trust people completely and “let go and let God,” in every situation. I admit it was nice trusting others to solve my problems with their power and control of my Parkinson’s, my DBS, and my problems.

The battery replacement took place on July 1, and I have had no adverse effects and am healing great.