Monday, July 27, 2015

Bad things happen in threes

I took another half tab of Azilect with some iced coffee this morning and later I would schedule my first physical therapy appointment.

I flashback several weeks ago in which I bit down on a pit-less olive and found a pit!   On Wednesday, June 24,  I was in Charlie's office. Charlie has been my dentist for over 20 years. "I am afraid that the tooth is cracked in half down the middle John," Charlie said. (That is number one.) I am off to the surgeon for an emergency extraction, which will be followed in four months by surgery for a dental implant. I get halfway out of his office, look over my shoulder and see Charlie headed towards me with a concerned look on his face. "John I  have known you for over 20 years, so I'm just going to say this. Something is seriously wrong with you. You have lost weight and not in a good way, something in your voice has changed, you are walking in an odd way and your right arm does not swing naturally." I explained to Charlie and I had been going to physical therapy for frozen shoulder and that the way in which I was holding my arm was probably throwing my gate off. "You may have had frozen shoulder, but the rest of that is just bull shit." He asks if I have a neurologist and when I answer yes, he says, "Go back to her and tell her you have a friend who is a doctor and he feels that something is seriously wrong with you." I get home and my head is throbbing along with my jaw, so I pop an oxy in my mouth and float  for a little bit.

In a few days, I am off to Delaware County, New York with my wife and son to spend a week swimming in a pond and watching the cows. We get there, unpack and sit on the couch for a moment when the phone rings. It is our downstairs neighbor who explains that there was water leaking into her apartment from above. (That is number two.) To make a long story short, we soon find out that the leak was coming from the apartment above ours and end up staying in the sublet while a construction crew rips our place apart, removes the mold and puts it back together again.

If you have been reading this blog then you know that the next thing that occurs is the Parkinson's diagnosis (That is number three.) 

The frozen shoulder injury which managed to mask some of the symptoms of Parkinson's was  probably caused by Parkinson's in the first place! This is not uncommon in Parkinson's patients. I am a little bit angry about the lost and time and the wasted visits to the shoulder specialist and his misdiagnosis, but "when you have a hammer…"