When Katie, Brendan and Erin describe their dad, they can’t help but smile.
“So many people have said that I am my father’s daughter,” Wilkins said.
“He’s super funny; he has a great sense of humor,” PJ’s Daughter Erin Delaney said.
“He was very much the center of attention, the life of the party,” PJ’s Son Brendan Delaney said.
Over the past 16 years, they say that sparkle has faded away.
“Over time it was less of him being active with us, like shooting hoops in the driveway, or throwing a football in our yard, or playing baseball,” Erin said.
“He’s quiet, to himself. He’s around, but he’s not around,” Brendan said.
“You see this person that used to exude this confidence and be so outgoing and now, sometimes when he’s just sitting in the corner not really talking to people, you’re like, ‘Come on, you used to be so engaging!'” Wilkins said.
All three kids live up north, so when they do get to see their dad, Erin says it gets harder and harder to watch him get worse.
“You don’t realize how much it progresses when you’re not around it every single day,” she said.
Diane first told the kids about the idea of deep brain stimulation surgery early in 2018, but Erin was getting married that fall.
“My first thought was, ‘Is he gonna be there to walk me down the aisle?'” Erin said.
PJ did walk her down the aisle, but Erin hated seeing him struggle.
“He did an awesome job, and we just wanted him to ultimately have a better quality of life. When Diane started educating us about what the surgery could do and showing us videos of people who had great success, that’s all we want,” Erin said.
They told PJ with how much worse he’d gotten, he had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
“This disease was taking my father from me, so to speak,” Brendan said.
The three have different goals for what their dad gets out of the multi–part surgery, and though it has a high success rate, they know DBS comes with no guarantees.
“I wanna be able to shoot some hoops with my dad and throw some pigskin and just maybe go back to how things were five or 10 years ago,” Erin said.
“Golf,” Brendan said. “We did the father son tournament every year until I was out of college.”
“Even if this procedure improves his quality of life by 15 to 20%, that to us is worth it,” Wilkins said.
They’re ready to stand by their father’s side as he gets ready to go into the operating room.
“It’s a lot, but life happens. You just gotta take it in strides,” Wilkins said.