Five years ago, I noticed that my right arm didn’t swing naturally as I walked and coincidentally,  my handwriting had suddenly become very small.  As I soon learned, those are two classic signs of PD.

There is no test to positively confirm a PD diagnosis. It is deduced by the effectiveness of the medication to quell the symptoms. If you take the meds and the symptoms abate, you have it. If they don’t you don’t. For me, unfortunately, they worked.

For several years after that initial diagnosis, the meds masked my symptoms but they also made me so sleepy I would drop off to sleep for a second or two while in a meeting or at my desk. Once, I even fell asleep while I was driving. I sideswiped the signs in a cross walk. Thank God no one was in the crosswalk. I immediately called my doctor who reduced the dosage of one of my meds and that remedied the sleepiness.

There are 50+ symptoms of PD. Currently, I experience nine of them, including poor balance, stiffness, toe cramping, difficulty writing, constipation, loss of a sense of smell, depression, anxiety, and when I am stressed, mental confusion. My physical symptoms mostly affect my right side. Of course, aging can cause many of the same symptoms, so it’s sometimes difficult to determine if the cause is PD or just old age. Exercise is the one thing that has been proven to slow the progression of the disease and I try to get at least 30 minutes of exercise every day. I believe it is helping me maintain a near normal range of motion, reduce my stiffness and improve my balance.

It’s hard not to think about a debilitating future and I worry about not being able to fully participate in family activities. My current PD symptoms make me slow to get out of a car, walk down steps and walk generally. One thing I really appreciate is for my companions to wait for me and allow me to join them as we walk even if that means they have to slow down a bit.

There is one positive result of my PD diagnosis. It prompted me to retire and that has given me more time to spend with friends and family, to live in the present and enjoy life.