Accepting the Fight

16 October 2026 · Gabriel

Nobody prepares you for the moment a doctor says the words Parkinson’s disease. I wasn’t ready, and it took me a long time to get to where I am now.

Then, as if that weren’t enough, the world changed. COVID arrived, everyone was isolated and afraid, and during those same years I lost my dad. It wasn’t because of the virus, but the loss was just as heavy. I was facing my own illness and my own grief at a time when I couldn’t lean on people the way I needed to.

First came denial. Maybe the tests were wrong. Maybe the tremor, the stiffness, the slowness were just stress or tiredness. I told myself it would pass. It didn’t.

Then came anger. Why me? Why now? I had spent years being the strong one, someone who could keep going when things got hard. Feeling my own body stop obeying me felt like a betrayal. The pandemic and the loss of my dad only made that anger deeper.

Then came the bargaining and the sadness. I looked for shortcuts, a miracle, a way to make it all go away. When I realized there was none, the grief arrived, and it was a double grief. I mourned my father, and I mourned the person I used to be and the future I had pictured.

And then, slowly, came acceptance. Not surrender, but a quiet decision: this is my reality, so what can I do about it?

That question changed everything.

I learned that deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a powerful tool, but it is not the final solution. It can ease many of the symptoms, but it doesn’t cure the disease. Parkinson’s will stay with me. What I can do is make it harder for it to move forward.

For me, the answer is movement. Exercise is one of the few things that is truly in my hands. Every workout, every walk, every session of stretching or boxing is a way of telling the disease: you don’t get to decide how fast this goes. The research is encouraging: regular exercise improves balance, strength, mobility and mood, and many specialists believe it can help slow the impact of the disease over time.

Some days are harder than others. Some mornings my body says no, and I do it anyway, even if it’s only a little. Showing up matters more than being perfect.

If you are at the beginning of this road, I won’t tell you it’s easy. Give yourself time to grieve. All of those stages are real, and you are allowed to feel every one of them. But when you are ready, take that first step. Accept it, and then start doing something.

Because acceptance isn’t the end of the fight. It’s where the fight begins.

Gabriel