Reflections on Parkinson’s Disease: An Introduction (7/9/25)

Fifteen to 20 years ago, I lost most of my sense of smell.  It is hard to be exact on the timing; it kind of snuck up on me.  

As I write this (July 2025), I am 68½ and just was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.  Getting the diagnosis was, in a sense, a relief.  That might strike some as strange!  I thought I had a more aggressive neurologic disease, such as ALS.  In comparison, Parkinson’s is a relief.  It actually makes sense of many symptoms I have had over at least the last 5 years, and maybe longer!

For example, I read that people with Parkinson’s disease may have impairment in their sense of smell about 15 years before diagnosis.  I can’t pinpoint the date, but I remember that it first became obvious that I couldn’t smell well when I was a surgeon in Nelsonville.  One day when I cut open an anaerobic abscess in the operating room, all the OR staff complained bitterly of the nauseating smell.  It didn’t bother me.  As part of my job, I performed many colonoscopies (best estimate of 4-5,000), which at times could be pretty messy if the prep didn’t work well.  Although the smell seemed to bother others, I was oblivious. (Maybe a very good thing!)

Just an aside on colonoscopies.  I live in a small town.  Frequently I meet people, who seem to know me, even though I don’t remember them. (No, it is not due to Parkinson’s dementia, at least not yet!) Often it turns out that I did a colonoscopy on them.  For them, it might have been a very memorable experience, as they remember the guy who ordered the miserable prep for them and left them bloated, uncomfortable and farting uncontrollably afterwards.  For me they were just one of many patients, all in a day’s work.  (I do tend to better remember people who had major operations or health issues.  It is not that I am uncaring about individuals (at least I hope not), but when on an average week I did 8-10 colonoscopies, I just didn’t get to know every patient in that much detail.  After all, I wasn’t concentrating on their faces during the procedure!)

This is already getting longer than I had intended.  So I better wrap it up.  As I am learning about Parkinson’s disease, I am seeing it, not only as a patient, but also as a physician-scientist, (with some tainted objectivity) and a bit of fascination with the disease process that has likely been doing its damage, undetected for maybe 15-20 years.  Therefore, I’ll be sharing some additional personal reflections on Parkinson’s disease in my future posts.

So, for now, that’s it with

Ruminations from Retirement

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Motel Mentality? (6/22/25)

When we travel, we look for Hampton Inn hotels along the route.  They offer options for breakfast that fit our plant-based, whole food diet choice; oatmeal made without dairy, topped with nuts and dried fruit, grab and go apples, bananas and oranges, often also roasted potatoes, and sometimes fresh berries and chunked up melon!  If we have not had enough physical activity for the day, there are an exercise room and indoor swimming pool, and often a hot tub. (Usually, no one is in the hot tub or swimming pool, and at most one other person in the exercise room!)  The Hampton rooms have plenty of space to spread out, with a king or two queen beds. My neck so agrees with one of their several pillow options that I purchased one online for home.   Hotels offer a sense of privacy, a quiet refuge, an escape.  Once you enter the front door, you are in the fortress.  Vehicles and their noise are at a distance.  The carpeted hallways...
Read more

A Pill Organizer? (7/14/25)

There have been times that I have had to take a pill twice or three times a day.     Usually it was an antibiotic, and only prescribed for a week or two.     Occasionally I would forget a pill, especially once I was feeling better and not so focused on the illness. I have seen many “older” folks with pill organizers.  You’ve seen them.  Those plastic boxes with multiple compartments marked with days and times.  I thought they were a helpful tool for those whose minds were slipping a bit. About a month ago, I started to take medicine, initially as a test to see if it improved my tremor, which would solidify the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.  The medicine, carbidopa / levodopa, did reverse the tremor when dosed high enough, but was also accompanied by significant side effects at that level.  However, at a lower dose, while the tremor persists, I have great improvement in back pain and bladder spasms, both well worth...
Read more

The Belly of the Beast (7/12/25)

Yesterday I was reading the   daily meditation from the Center for Action and Contemplation .     This week’s theme was focused on Jonah.     Richard Rohr wrote:   … We have to be swallowed by something bigger than ourselves. The phrase used by many, including Thomas Merton, was that we have to go into the “belly of the beast”—a place where we are not in control, where we can’t fix it, explain it, understand it, or even like it. Our lack of control, our lack of preference isn’t important. We just have to learn from it.       Even though Richard Rohr was referring to adolescent male initiation into adulthood, this resonated with me as a description of aging!   Not much I can do about it!  Might as well learn from it!   Dave Drozek with Ruminations from Retirement
Read more