Friday, July 24, 2015:
I am diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.  I cried a little bit and then I asked the most pressing question, "Can I pass this on to my son?"  The doctor answers, "Your son has the same chances of getting this disease as anyone in the general public and no more." 

When I walked into the NYU medical center, I knew that the prognosis would not be good. I was holding my right arm and awkward way, my right foot felt like it was stuck to the floor, people kept saying "what?" after everything I said and my handwriting was getting smaller.

Flashback:
The neurologist I was seeing for my, "carpal tunnel" had blurted out, "these are all the classical signs of Parkinson's" when I told her about my symptoms. What the fuck I thought, she keeps me waiting for over two and a half hours and then just blurts out "Parkinson's" without any feeling or emotion. She then follows up with, "but I am not qualified to say..." So two hours and thirty-seven minutes later (that's right, after blurting out "Parkinson's" she spends less than 10 minutes with me), I leave the neurologist office with a script for movement disorder specialist.

The next day, I call NYU and try to get an appointment with a movement disorder specialist. I am told at the nearest appointment is over a month away. So I go back to the web and after hours of searching, the Michael J Fox website and the national Parkinson's website I find a specialist at NYU medical center who has an opening within two weeks. I hate to be trite but, the next two weeks felt like the longest two weeks of my life.

Back to the appointment:
The doctor spends over two hours with me. This is the more time that anyone in the medical profession has ever spent with me. The diagnosis is garden variety Parkinson's disease.

The doctor says,
"You do not deserve this. Nothing you did made this happen. You will never be as bad as Michael J Fox is now. You will probably never suffer from any cognitive impairment.  If we keep changing your medications up you can live a very long, symptom free life. With medication, the symptoms you have right now will most likely dissipate. You mentioned that you knew something about deep brain stimulation surgery and I think you would be a excellent candidate for this, but that is a ways off for now. You should start physical therapy soon as you are ready This is a disease that can be managed around your life and not a disease that you manage your life  around."

I get about a months worth of samples of Azilect, schedule my next appointment.  I tell my wife and inform the handful of family and friends.  I may be in denial, but somehow, I feel lucky.