In May of 2022, I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. For at least a year leading up to this diagnosis, I knew something wasn't working right, physically and mentally. I would have days of what I'd call, 'spunginess,' in which my head felt like it was tingling and my tinnitus would really ramp up. I also found myself not being able to focus and my anxiety would increase, along with drooling out of the sides of my mouth (not a great look), and my jaw and hands were shaking. My family noticed my gait had changed, and that it reminded them of my mother, who had fairly strong symptoms of Parkinson's, though diagnosed in the very late stages. The strongest indicator that I had was my music ability. For a long time, I have been able to muster simple train beats with brushes on a snare on my own demos when recording at home. Somewhere during that year, I found I couldn't do that anymore. Imagine Steve Martin in The Jerk, manically snapping his fingers. Then, one day I was warming up with Eddie Van Halen's arpeggiated opening of "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love," and I found my fingers tripping over the strings in a way that I hadn't since learning the figure in 1979 from the one and only Johnny Rose, a guitar legend in Joplin, MO. After that I found myself struggling with basic guitar chords that I'd played for years. And, the most noticeable thing was I found I couldn't sing, at least not in the way I was used to. I found myself with this soft voice that felt like it had no muscle control behind it. I've never had a great vocal ability, but it always did what I wanted to do. It was functional. So, with all these earmarks that said, "Something isn't right," I told my doctor. She agreed that it was time for a referral to a neurologist. From the time of her referral to the time I actually saw the neurologist was 4 months. In the meanwhile, I was attempting to do the best impersonation of a regular human being that I could in front of my students at school, colleagues, and bandmates.
It didn't take very long for the neurologist to agree that things weren't grooving. He gave me prescriptions for carbadopa, admantadine, and Ongentys, which prevents levodopa breakdown so that more gets to the brain and turns into dopamine. Dopamine is the brain chemical that fuels normal movement and decreases in Parkinson's disease. Things got better fairly quickly. The guitar was my actual barometer. The chords came back and I was able to get through a gig without having a minor freakout of, "Can I even play this damned song?!" What didn't come back as strong was my drumming (a precision train beat seems to be a goner) and my voice is as inconsistent as hell. I can't always assemble my speaking in the way I want, especially if I'm trying to explain a new experience to someone. My hands get cold as hell. There are times when the medication seems to wear out and symptoms arise. They call these 'off times,' which can be scary as hell. It can lead to some severe depression, mainly because it brings up more thoughts of your own mortality and what kind of demise truly awaits you than a person can handle. All that being said, I measure my Parkinson's troubles by May of 2022, which was before I was able to see my neurologist and I was a shaking, trembling, drooling, mess. Things have been up and down since then, but, thankfully, nothing has been as bad since. It's an ongoing process and I'm still a Parkinson's beginner, so what the future holds is still undecided, but I'm hanging in there with the help of my family and friends.