Day 12

Today is the fourth day of taking a full dose of my medication and I am eager to see results.

I began the day by teaching my two spinning classes. For over 15 years, I have taught spinning at Credit Suisse, many of my students have been there since day one and they feel like family.  I know all about their children and their accomplishments, their aging parents and illnesses in their families. Two of them know about my diagnosis and I find it helpful to talk to them about it.

After my classes, I went to the New York Stem Cell Research Center and had a biopsy done for a Parkinson's study.  I posted yesterday that I thought that doing something for others would make me feel less powerless and I was right. The people there are really nice and the entire process was quick and painless.  As an added bonus, they gave me a $50 American Express gift card! I am going to give it to my wife for putting up with all my shit!

By 1:30pm I was at my first physical therapy appointment. Waiting in the lobby was thoroughly depressing. While there was one person about 15 years older than me, most of the patients had at least 20 years on me.  Many of them were caught up in the downward spiral of injury leading to inactivity, leading to gaining weight, leading to further injury. On the positive side, the physical therapist thought that I was doing great and said that I would probably only need three or four visits for now! He is going to ask the doctor to write a script for occupational therapy, but he feels that this could be handled in three or four appointments as well. The therapist was a nice guy, but I could have done without the laundry list of Parkinson's symptoms! Especially when he implied that they were all an eventual reality. It is boutique disease after all!

Special note to those in the medical profession: Offer to help Parkinson's patients who have to fill out medical forms!  I really like NYU medical center, but there are a few things that they could do to improve.   First, based on the diagnosis, ask the patient if she or he needs help filling out forms. Second, since they have all of your records already, they should have certain fields on the forms fill in automatically. What do they call that? Auto fill?  How many times do I have fill out a form listing my name, address, date of birth and cell phone number? What were the photo and finger print scan for anyway?

Random thought: "I need a massage!"

Overall, it was a very good day.