Preface: A Parkinson’s Reading Companion
“You may not control life’s circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them.” Atul Gawande*
“On every journey you take, you face choices. At every fork in the road, you make a choice. And it is those decisions that shape our lives.” Mike DeWine*
In thinking about expectations from the undergraduate students in the class “Biology of Blood Diseases”, I begin each semester with the hope that they will learn something about science, about life, about life in science, and about science in life.
I have always expected the students to write and express their thoughts and opinions. Thus, I’ve used an exercise called ‘thought-filled responses’. For the third thought this spring semester, they submitted quotes on the following: hope, courage, journey, persistence, positivity, strength, adversity, mindfulness, and life. Compiling these quotes has provided much insight about this class of students; you get an appreciation of their love of life, their expectation of career, and their own future dreams.
It is my pleasure to present the collection of quotes entitled “A Parkinson’s Reading Companion”. [*NOTE: With the exception of the 2 opening quotes above, all of the quotes in Chapters 1-9 were submitted by the students.]
Chapter 1: A Parkinson’s Reading Companion on Hope
“Once you choose hope, anything is possible.” Christopher Reeve
“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables
Introduction: Last summer, I composed a blog entitled “Words Worth Living” (to read it click here). The theme of the post revolved around quotes of inspiration. Joseph Conrad (in Lord Jim) said “My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel–it is, before all, to make you see.”
One of the exercises in my undergraduate course, “Biology of Blood Diseases”, is something I call “Thought-filled Responses” (the class also expressed their thoughts about cancer and HIV/AIDS). For this thought, the 62 students were asked to submit one quote on five (or more) of the following: hope, courage, journey, persistence, positivity, strength, adversity, mindfulness, and life. This exercise had three goals: to find quotes they could identify with; to help alleviate the stress of their upcoming final exams; and to provide me a novel reservoir of quotes for future blogs. My original idea was to revisit ‘words worth living’ and post several quotes on the meaning of each word as chosen by the class. However, a great suggestion from a student was to somehow include all of their quotes. Thus, I will be posting nine chapters entitled “A Parkinson’s Reading Companion” with all the submitted quotes for each word.
This thought-filled response exercise generated a very favorable review by the class and here are a few of their comments: “Just wanted to share some of my favorite quotes”; “I may have gotten carried away but these are some quotes that I have found inspirational over the years. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to find quotes to inspire ourselves in a time filled with lots of stress. I hope these quotes resonate with you as well.”; “Here are a few quotes that have put a smile on my face or have kept me going through some tough stretches over the past few years.”
Hope in the presence of Parkinson’s: Living with Parkinson’s requires you to adapt to its subtle but progressive changes over a long period of time; you need to remain hopeful for many different things. Hope that your therapy slows the progression of the disorder. Hope that all of your family, friends, and colleagues (and for me students) continue to support you throughout your journey. Hope that a cure is but a day away. Hope that bad moments you may be having will dissipate quickly and move on to better and happier moments. May these quotes on hope bolster your strength and resolve to keep living strong against this unfortunate disorder.
Hope: I am pleased to present Chapter 1 about hope with my co-authors: Angle, Hannah; Arthur, Kallie; Artov, Michael; Bagley, Kendall; Batista, Kayla; Blaylock, Allison; Byrd, Emory; Cabell, Grant; Catalano, Michael; Clark, Kendall; Cossaart, Kristen; Culpepper, Houston; Das, Snigdha; Davis, Eric; Defazio, Stephanie; Doudnikoff, Alex; Dua, Shawn; Evans, Jessica; Evick, Andrew; Farooque, Tazeen; Ford, Kelsey; German, Zachary; Gouveia, Katie; Hall, Nikita; Isler, Victoria; Kirkley, Joel; Koutleva, Elitza; Laudun, Katie; Le, Kevin; Little, Sarah; Mackey, Josselyn; Macon, Briana; Maddox, Kaity; Marquino, Grace; Mattox, Daniel; Mcknight, Kyle; Mcmanus, Brenna; Mcshane, Sarah; Monkiewicz, Caroline; Nguyen, Michelle; Nguyen, Teresa; Olinger, Emily; Patel, Darshan; Patel, Dilesh; Patel, Jenny; Perez, Abby; Peters, Daniel; Quirin, Julia; Rawlins, Shelby; Raynor, Nathan; Renn, Matt; Scott, Alicia; Sherry, Alex; Shin, Christine; Stanton, Kate; Story, Charlotte; Swango, Summer; Szyperski, Caroline; Windley, Taylor; Wooley, Caleb; Xu, Alice; Yang, Michelle.
“There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow,” Orison Swett Marden
“Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.” Samuel Smiles
“I hope, or I could not live.” HG Well’s The Island of Doctor Moreau
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” Martin Luther King Jr
“Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.” ~Napoleon Bonaparte
“To live without hope is to cease to live” Fyodor Dostoevsky
“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” Thomas Merton
“We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming – well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.” Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses
“Learn from yesterday, Live for today and Hope for tomorrow.” Albert Einstein
“Hope, the only thing stronger than fear” President Snow
“Hope is not a dream, it is a way of making dreams reality.” L. J. Svenens
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness” Desmond Tutu
“I know what I have to do now, I’ve got to keep breathing because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?” Tom Hanks in Cast Away
“I loved you at your darkest” Romans 5:8
“God shines through the cracks of broken people.” Anita Krizzan
“While the heart beats, hope lingers.” Alison Croggon
“You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.” – Michelle Obama
“Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man” Victor Hugo
“To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.” G.K. Chesterton
“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” Nelson Mandela
“At the end of the day, all you can hope for is to go on. The older I get, the more I realize that just keeping on keeping on is what life’s all about.” Janis Ian
“Hope like an optimist, Prepare like a pessimist, but Act like a realist.” Unknown
“Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future.” Robert H. Schuller
“I have been bent and broken but – I hope – into a better shape.” Charles Dickens
“We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreperably broken.” John Green, Looking for Alaska
“Your sadness, your anger will not solve the problem. More sadness, more frustration only brings more suffering for yourself, … No matter how tragic the situation, we should not lose hope.” Dalai Lama
“No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible.” George Chakiris
“Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. Harriet Beecher Stowe
“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” Tom Bodett
“If you keep hope alive, it will keep you alive.” Cassandra Clare
“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.”
Emily Dickinson
“Yesterday is but a dream,
Tomorrow is only a vision.
But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.”
Kālidāsa, The complete works of Kalidasa
“It’s going to be all right, sir,” Harry said over and over again, more worried by Dumbledore’s silence than he had been by his weakened voice. “We’re nearly there … I can Apparate us both back … don’t worry …”
“I am not worried, Harry,” said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. “I am with you.”
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
“Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do” Pope John XIII
Cover photo credit: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EMLtp1k4t5s/TV6QlQREZYI/AAAAAAAAAzs/iwWOWxF34jM/s1600/Spring%2BBeach%2BWallp%2Blong%2Bgoodbye%2Bblog.png
Journey with Parkinson's 
Thank you for this!
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