PN and Resistance to Change?

Last evening, my partner told me she’d had no choice but to invite one of her old friends to join us for Sunday brunch. For more years than I can remember, our Sunday brunch––preceded by three or four quiet hours of reading the Sunday paper––has been a sacred time for my partner and me. My partner’s friend, who lives in Europe, was in town for only a few days, visiting extended family. Her joining us for Sunday brunch was the friend’s only option.

In years past, I would have said to my partner, “No problem! Invite her to join us. It will be fun.” But that would have been me in my pre-PN days. Last evening, when I was told about the invite, I felt in my gut a clutch that, since the onset of my PN symptoms, has become all too familiar. As a guy with PN, I’ve grown intolerant of change, not only of change but also of substitutions, adjustments, modifications, redirections, and almost anything that represents a departure from the way I’ve practiced living my life with the symptoms of PN.

I don’t like this new me, this post-PN diagnosis me. I try every day to do things that will help me return to being the person I once was, a fellow who would ordinarily say, “What’s going to happen? That’ll be different. Let’s do it!”

Do others of you with PN symptoms feel a similar clutch in the gut when you’re asked to do something that’s a departure from the norm? Just wondering …