Life of Wry

This summer, while driving in France, Jim noticed his hand shook as he gripped the wheel of our rental Peugeot. Seemed odd. When we got back to Davis, Jim checked in with his primary care physician who suggested he keep an eye on it and let him know if it intensified. He did, it had, so Dr. Ho referred him to a specialist.

Three weeks ago (on November 20th), Jim and I saw Dr. Mense, a Kaiser neurologist. He did some simple in-office, observational diagnostics and concluded Jim has Parkinson’s.

Not the diagnosis we were hoping for.

So that is the bad news. The more positive news (it’s all relative) is that he’s got a subtype of Parkinson’s called tremor-dominant Parkinson Disease. The neurologist was quick to say that Jim would live a long and active life and that PD would not be what gets him in the end. His subtype is characterized by a resting tremor (as opposed to a tremor that activates when engaging one’s hand or arm, for example) which is annoying, but largely addressable with a medication called levodopa. He will not experience the other symptoms of PD.. rigidity, bradykinesia (slow movements), loss of balance, dementia. At least not anytime soon.

For the last three weeks, he’s been titrating levodopa, and is close to arriving at a dosage that will settle his jiggling right forearm. Aside from taking this medication a few times a day, and dealing with a mostly manageable tremor, it’ll be business as usual … we hope for a very long time.

Nothing in life is certain (how’s that for a platitude!), but we are feeling generally optimistic as we feel our way along this new path.

Here’s my otherwise healthy, fit, good lookin’ guy chillin’ on a Dolomite mountainside a year ago this past summer: