Taking responsibility

This blog continues its path, sharing the inside details of the follow up to the award-winning documentary, "Boys of Summer". For more details, to watch the film or contribute to the sequel, please click here.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.”

The more often I come back to that prayer, the more interesting, impressive and vexing it is. Within health, we all must take responsibility for ourselves. Health, as discussed many times before on these pages and thousands of others, is a slippery term to say the least. I asked my dad today what he’s taken responsibility for and what he hasn’t within his Parkinson’s Disease. At first, he thought he’d done pretty well with it. When I asked him to expand on what that meant or offer specific examples, he was slow to the draw. My mom, sitting off-frame from the camera shot I’d arranged of my dad and me, whispered in full voice: “working out!” It was one of those moments where we needed at least one more camera to capture the beautiful, unstoppable force that is Paulette Cochrane when it comes to conversations. My dad stared at her for a few moments, then deadpanned, “My wife thinks I do a good job working out.”

He went on to acknowledge that he doesn’t speak up as well as he could. I asked him if that went beyond the literal volume of his voice to asking for help. He said that was probably true. My dad’s a proud man. He doesn’t want special attention. He’s hesitant to use his walking sticks even though they help because he loses the use of his hands to carry things. This is going to continue to be a struggle as naturally, Parkinson’s or no Parkinson’s, he’s getting older. He turns 70 in a week. That’s a big number. He’s going to have to be responsible for that, as are we all. Health is communal whether we want it to be or not.

In baseball terms, there was a “big” incident last weekend (or series of incidents) involving a player from the Baltimore Orioles named Manny Machado. I bring this up to tie back to baseball, something I always want to do as it’s part of our foundation in the Boys of Summer journey and as his behavior is a perfect example of not taking responsibility. In brief, Machado is a talented young third basemen who is back from a severe knee injury that he’s apparently still sensitive about. On a rather routine ground ball to Oakland A’s third basemen Josh Donaldson, Machado ran from second on contact, figuring Donaldson would go to first base for the third and final out. Seeing easy pickings, Donaldson did the less traditional thing and tagged out Machado. Machado tried to dance out of the way and in so doing, tripped, fell on his rear and looked foolish. He took offense to Donaldson’s untraditional play and let him know. Silly, but no big deal. The problem is, cooler heads did not prevail. Responsibility, which started and ended solely with Machado, was never taken. The incident, therefore spiraled, due in part to baseball’s oft-written about unwritten rules, leading to pitchers throwing at batters, Machado hitting A’s catcher Derek Norris with a pair of long back swings and then losing control of his bat and hurtling it all the way up the third baseline. All because of a lack of taking responsibility.

There’s a metaphor in Machado’s lack of maturity – and it’s not just that he’s young. Machado’s actions and subsequent lack of genuine apology (capped by his appeal to a suspension) are representative of individuals and organizations who don’t take responsibility for themselves. We all pay the price for this. But where to draw that line? Oh the vexing serenity prayer.

So it goes with my dad. I offered my frustration that he hadn’t put more emphasis into meditation, even with all of the logical (the greatest appeal method to him) information I’ve offered him on how it could positively affect his Parkinson’s. He acknowledged the validity of my argument and that was it. And so the wisdom says to me I’ve done my part, he knows as much as he needs to know and he will do with it what he will. I’m not a doctor. But even within the ranks of doctors there is plenty of room for question of intent. What is a doctor? Dr. DeMartino openly questions doctors who are unwilling to change in the face of overwhelming evidence that new (or new/old) treatments work for patients. He finds pharmaceutical companies criminal for not being held responsible for the number of deaths they cause in America (fourth highest cause of death according to this Harvard article). He mentioned a Chinese doctor being executed by its government for being responsible for five deaths due to pharmaceutical mistakes. Is that too much? Where’s the line? What’s the value of a human life in the face of some of the largest profits in the world?

When it comes to responsibility with health, I believe we all must acknowledge we are at once individually responsible and societally affective. Have fun with that.