An impactful interview

I heard Michael J Fox being interviewed on Howard Stern yesterday. It had me thinking for the rest of the day about living life after an unexpected devastating life occurrence.  There were a few things he said that stood out to me.

One was that his initial reaction was that the diagnosis was unfair or that the doctor had it wrong.  I still feel this way all of the time. My son can't be the one that died of SIDS.  There are times I still expect to wake up from this nightmare and realize that we are fine.

The second was that his grief was so overwhelming that he spend a full year feeling angry, self medicating and full of fear and that the way out of those feelings was gradual and took a lot of work.  I don't even really need to explain how much I relate.  It took a full year to even begin to sort out my emotions and start to figure out how I was possibly going to live the rest of my life without Max.

 The third was that being diagnosed with Parkinson's made him realize that bad things could happen to him, which I am sure he hadn't given much thought to before that time.  He said that after the diagnosis, he kept waiting for the "other shoe to drop" and then people would remind him that the other shoe had already dropped - he was diagnosed with Parkinson's - everything after that would be a walk in the park.  I flip flop between these feelings all of the time.  I am almost surprised every morning that Mo has lived another day because my brain has been rewired to almost expect the worst.  On the other hand, I work hard to retrain it every day and remind myself that nothing (NOTHING) can ever happen again that will be as horrific as losing Max.  The "other shoe" already dropped.

The last thing he said that I keep thinking about was in response to the criticisms he received of how he handled his diagnosis because MAN, people LOVE to criticize people who are going through hell.  He said that that is when he realized how B.S criticism actually is because the only people that matter in the case of how he handles his disease is himself and his family.  That is it.