I don’t know if it is that or maybe, I’m just more aware of it, but I’ve had a lot of Parkinson’s questions in the past week. And they haven’t been strictly about the Deep Brain Stimulation surgery I had last August.
Questions such as, “What symptoms did you have when you first thought you may have Parkinson’s?” and “What types of medications are there?” “Do you eventually need surgery to take care of the symptoms?”
Well, my best advice is to see a doctor, preferably a neurologist that specializes in Parkinson’s. We’re fortunate to have two outstanding facilities in the metro area that treat Parkinson’s patients— Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph’s Hospital in central Phoenix and Mayo Clinic, just over the hill in Scottsdale.
The Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center is also located at Barrow.
As for the first question I mentioned earlier, it was in late 1995, that I learned of the possibility that I may have Parkinson’s.
I first noticed some changes in my body several years before that. I was playing first base in the Fountain Hills Men’s Softball League. The last game I played, I missed three throws from the shortstop. I didn’t just drop the ball, I never even got a glove on it.
I wonder if this hesitation in reaching for the ball was my first indication of Parkinson’s. The next thing I noticed is that I suddenly began having extra “a’s” in my copy when I typed.
Then there was the day I tripped going up the stairs to the restroom in our building. The tripping became more prevalent just walking across the carpeting both at home and in the office.
It was at the Chamber’s summer mixer in 1995 that I first heard the “P” word. I was talking to a Realtor that had previously been a nurse, I told her that I was having some shaking in my left arm. I thought it had something to do with a shoulder injury I had suffered several years earlier while playing softball.
“Have you ever been checked for Parkinson’s?” she asked.
“Isn’t that an older person’s disease?” I asked. I was 47 years old.
Several weeks later, another Realtor friend of mine, had emergency surgery to remove a brain tumor. After she returned home, I asked her what symptoms she had before she suffered the seizure.
She said she had some minor headaches, but two weeks before the seizure, she was putting her makeup on and she started drooling from the left side of her mouth. I told her I was experiencing those same conditions.
“Go get it checked,” she said.
I made an appointment with Dr. Bill O’Brien at the local health center. In his exam, he suspected something was going on so he scheduled me for an MRI. I went back to see him several days after that MRI.
“We scanned your brain and didn’t find anything,” he said.
“Maybe that’s why I’m having memory loss. There isn’t any brain up there,” I quipped. The doctor replied, “No this is a good thing, there are no tumors. But I’m going to send you to a neurologist. That’s when I met Dr. Gary Reese, a Scottsdale neurologist. He is very thorough and very knowledgeable about Parkinson’s. He tried me on Sinemet and the symptoms went away. I thought, this is a good thing. Dr. Reese replied, “I say you have the early stages of Parkinson’s.” By this time it was February 1996.
