I’ve already told those closest to me about this. Yesterday I talked it over with my project lead and his deputy at Space Telescope. Now I’m going to share it with the rest of you. Because at this age sharing our stories about aging is something we can all do for each other. Also, I’m an artist and wearing our hearts on our sleeves, and on the canvas, is just something we do.<\/p>\n
For just over two years I\u2019ve been struggling with our wonderful health care system trying to get a handle on what\u2019s been happening to me. I\u2019ve been getting forgetful, fuzzy headed, can\u2019t focus. I\u2019ve been losing balance, nearly falling over sometimes when I have to change course while walking through a crowd, or going back into the house because I keep inevitably forgetting to take something with me. I have tremors, mostly in the left hand thank goodness because it\u2019s my right hand that\u2019s the drawing hand. But that one\u2019s getting them now too ever so slightly. I favor writing with one of my good fountain pens, usually my Mont Blanc 149 (the Diplomat), and lately I\u2019ve had to be extra careful putting down some of the curvy letters of the alphabet while writing. Sometimes when I\u2019m trying to draw I need to steady the pen with both hands. But I\u2019ve also lost a lot of ability to focus and that\u2019s kept me away from my drafting table and my cameras for going on a year now and that alone is killing me inside. For over two years I\u2019ve been trying to get doctors to look at me and tell me what is happening and all I get is oh you\u2019re just getting old take some vitamins. Okay, fine, I\u2019m 72 now, so I reckon yes that\u2019s old, but this didn\u2019t feel like normal aging.<\/p>\n
I ended up changing GPs (general practitioner) because my previous one retired and the new one they gave me at Whitman-Walker just didn\u2019t take an interest. I looked for one at Union Memorial because they\u2019ve done all the work on my heart since the heart attack in 2019 and I\u2019ve never felt better cared for there. It\u2019s an easy place for me to get to from home and I thought it would be good if I had all my doctors working from the same sets of data about me. The new GP I got took an instant interest in what was going on and she gave me several referrals.<\/p>\n
First was for a brain scan. It showed nothing out of the ordinary for someone my age. Then there was one for a sleep study that I didn\u2019t follow up on because I\u2019d had a really bad experience with one at Hopkins about a decade and a half ago. Third one was for a neurologist. I had a session with him last Thursday, and finally got clarity.<\/p>\n
The session was in thirds. First third was he asked me about what was going on with me and I gave him my laundry list of complaints. Pretty sure he was observing my body language and occasional difficulty getting words out. About halfway through he started asking me questions I wasn\u2019t sure as to their relevance. How is my sense of smell? (it\u2019s been nearly gone since the mid 1980s) When you wake up are your blankets all tangled up? Answer is somewhat, but not much unless I\u2019m too hot and kicking them off.<\/p>\n
Second third was your usual neurologist reflex\/coordination tests. The little hammer on the knee, can you feel this vibrating here, does that feel cold there, follow my finger with your eyes, touch your nose. He had me walk back and forth in the hallway outside the examination room. I think by then he\u2019d already figured out what was going on and he was trying to see how far along it had progressed.<\/p>\n
Tests done we had a chat, which he began by saying to me \u201cWhat I\u2019m about to tell you isn\u2019t good, but it\u2019s not as bad as you might think.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I have Parkinson\u2019s.<\/p>\n And this might sound strange, even for me, and inappropriate, but my first reaction to that was an overwhelming sense of relief, because in that moment everything Just Clicked<\/em>. Finally, after over two years of fighting with the American healthcare system to take my complaining seriously I had an explanation for what was happening to me that made sense. No it\u2019s not good, but going for years and years and still not knowing could only let it keep getting worse and worse when I could have been taking the right meds and doing whatever I need to do to keep it at bay for as long as I can.<\/p>\n Neurologist says I have at least five, if not ten more years before I\u2019ll be needing help. I\u2019m going to make the most of this time, however long it turns out to be. I feel suddenly unchained from worrying so much about my future. I\u2019ve never liked that live for the moment philosophy but now I can see some benefits there after all. I\u2019ve been put on a medication that shovels dopamine into the brain and the neurologist said I should notice an immediate and significant improvement in mental clarity, balance and motor functions when I start taking it. I\u2019ll reach a plateau of improvement that will slowly decline because there is no cure for this, only management. Fine. Whatever. I\u2019ll manage.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not going to troll for sympathy. I don\u2019t even like playing the senior citizen card (just give me my discount). But you get to the ages I and my classmates are now and things just start dogpiling on us and one thing we can do for each other is tell our stories. I\u2019ve been blogging my life ever since blogs first became a thing, and I reckon I\u2019ll keep doing that. Also searching out others who\u2019ve had this diagnosis and listening to their stories.<\/p>\n So now the rest of you know. I\u2019m okay. I\u2019ll deal with it and keep you posted.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve already told those closest to me about this. Yesterday I talked it over with my project lead and his deputy at Space Telescope. Now I’m going to share it with the rest of you. Because at this age sharing our stories about aging is something we can all do for each other. Also, I’m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[359,358,157],"class_list":["post-14343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-american-healthcare","tag-parkinsons","tag-the-old-man-chronicles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14343"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14347,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14343\/revisions\/14347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}