One morning in May 2004, I was walking from my car in the employee parking area to the internal and integrative medical clinic I owned and operated in West Sedona, Arizona when I noticed that I was not swinging my left arm normally. I tried to justify it in my mind as being a residual of learned behavior after a frozen shoulder that I had healed from in the previous months. But I knew instinctively that was very unlikely, and most likely I had just become aware of a symptom of Parkinson’s disease. Damn, I thought to myself. I was 54.
My father came to visit me in 1994 when he was 76 years old and asked me to check out some signs and symptoms he had been having. I, being a board-certified internal medicine physician in active practice with 9 years of experience at the time, of course, knew that it was unwise to treat a relative, but I also knew that if I found any evidence of disease, I could promptly refer him for appropriate care. What I found on examining him, was Parkinson's disease.
Since my mother had died in 1992, he had been basically living in his car, traveling around the country visiting and staying with friends and relatives. I told him what was happening and referred him to our local neurologist. The neurologist agreed with the diagnosis and started him on low-dose carbidopa/levodopa. We both encouraged him to find a place to settle where he could receive ongoing evaluation and care. He chose to live in Sierra Vista, Arizona next to Fort Huachuca, an army base that currently “houses the U.S. Army Intelligence Center, and the U.S. Army's Network Enterprise Technology Command.” Being a retired high-ranking NCO Army veteran of 25 years, he could play golf on the base links basically for free, and could use all the other base amenities. Golfing daily kept him in good shape because he walked the course and carried his own bag. And so his Parkinson’s advanced slowly until 10 years later I had to “rescue” him from his one-bedroom apartment in Sierra Vista, and move him to Cottonwood, Arizona where I was living. He died of psychotic dementia due to Lewy Body disease related to his Parkinson’s disease a year later.
This was not how I wanted to die… psychotically demented and immobile. And so my journey with Parkinson’s began in 2004 with my goal of finding a treatment that could slow the progression, reverse, or cure the disease. Not a small quest.
This blog is an attempt to share that journey with you, dear readers.
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