I was diagnosed with PD by a neurologist who did a cursory exam, watched me walk, and dubbed me as having PD. This was late 2006, a few months before I was to be ordained as Reverend and assume the role as Senior Pastor of my church. I had retired from the pharmaceutical industry after 34 years, had started a consulting business around organization development and change, and was eager to begin my new journey shepherding a flock. It was a noticeable limp that led me to the neurologist. I never suspected PD as the symptoms I was experiencing (limp and stiffness, both on my right side) were, in my understanding, not classic PD. I thought I knew the basics of PD since I was a District Sales Manager in NYC when we introduced a controlled release form of carbadopa\/levadopa to treat PD. I had a hard time accepting the diagnosis. What I had read and what I was experiencing didn’t seem to match. My primary physician diagnosed Lyme’s disease and I was treated (twice) for that. I connected with a physician at Duke University who had done some work with the company for which I had worked and he was fairly certain of the PD diagnosis, but intrigued by the lack of symptoms on the left side four years into the diagnosis and the persistent degeneration and atrophy of my right calf and foot. As soon as it was available, I was given a DAT Scan (a form of PET Scan) that is a definitive diagnosis of PD because it actually detects the level of activity of pyramidal cells in the substantia nigra that produce dopamine. Before that, the only absolute diagnosis was on autopsy. Sure enough, I had depletion of activity in that part of my brain, with greater depletion on the left side, which affects the right side of my body. Diagnosis confirmed, I surrendered and began to accept. However, that gnawing little thing called limp and atrophy on my right side was getting worse and none of the doctors were convinced that it was from PD. An MRI showed a cyst on my spine (benign) in my lower lumbar region, but on my left side where there is no visible impairment. The thot plickens! Early this year, (2013) a nerve specialist did a series of conduction studies to determine that I have superficial peroneal nerve entrapment on my right foot. This is probably from an old injury sustained at a company softball game in 1997 when I broke my right foot swinging at a softball. No, I didn’t get a home run, but a painful weekend at Six Flags nursing my pride and broken foot in the family motor home and outing with friends that had been planned for weeks. I admit I am still not fully convinced that is the final diagnosis of what is going on. I am neither a hypochondriac nor a cry baby, but I am a skeptic of absolute pigeon holes into which individuals are often plopped for the sake of convenience. The SPNE diagnosis does not fully explain the atrophy or dysmorphia of my right side, including my waist, buttocks, and leg. My only reason for wanting to know what’s going on is to give some clue as to what might be done to help alleviate the bothersome symptoms that plague me daily during seemingly mindless tasks. There may be others who would benefit from knowing as they experience similar symptoms. Now that we have this out of the way, let me share my feelings and experiences. They differ from time to time, but are ongoing in the challenge that has become a daily occurrence.<\/p>\n
Thank God (this means I’m grateful) that symptoms are only on my right side (that means one side rather than both). I experience virtually no symptoms on my left side. The right sided symptoms are stiffness in my hand and arm and tremor in my right hand. Both of these symptoms get worse as the day progresses, often, it seems, without regard to medication or dosage. Mornings are the best time of the day for me. I feel renewed and reasonably refreshed for the day ahead. I have virtually lost the ability to play the piano, which I love, and grieve that outlet of self expression. Stiffness in my right hand renders it slow to respond to the piano keys rendering any recognizable melody. The ability to play has greater potential in the morning, but alas, I have given up on the attempt since literally moving away from our piano. Likewise, typing with both hands is a virtual impossibility. I’ve become quite the lefty on the computer keyboard! I amaze myself with the speed (forget accuracy) with which my left hand glides over the letters to form reasonably logical sentences generated from between my ears. Frustrating, is the way in which the cursor seems to magically jump from the line being completed to a spot between a word in the previous paragraph. I attribute that to the cursor genie that gets her jollies seeing me frustrated over having to undo and redo what has been done. I patently ignore the fact that my rapidly moving left digits swipe the ever so sensitive touch pad to fling the cursor to near forgotten places from which time and attention from the current thought must be taken! Thank God again for a (sometimes warped) sense of humor. As insane as I may sound at times, it is truly my sanity!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was diagnosed with PD by a neurologist who did a cursory exam, watched me walk, and dubbed me as having PD. This was late 2006, a few months before I was to be ordained as Reverend and assume the role as Senior Pastor of my church. I had retired from the pharmaceutical industry after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parkinsons-disease-rants-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":987,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions\/987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}