Bob Martone,
I was amazed to see how much your wife and my journey with Parkinson's
Disease has paralleled one anothe. I too was diagnosed at 33 only in 1981. In
1987 I had a adrenal graft implant at Vanderbilt Univ. with limited results.
And in 1993 I had a bi-lateral Pallidotomy that has released me from my 15 years
with Parkinson's Disease .
Don
Dr. Don Berns
4943 Del Monte Rd.
La Canada, CA 91011
818-790-8812
<[log in to unmask]>
>Year 13. Life has become difficult. It is like a giant rollercoaster
>ride. Every one to three hours we cycle through periods of partail
>paralysis with resting tremor, relatively normal body movements with
>some limitations and then wild uncontrolled movements, caused by the
>medications, called dyskinesia. We have been through some severe bouts
>of depression and it has hit me as well. There is a new surgical
>procedure called adrenal transplant and we are getting desperate and
>plan to look into it. The University of Texas is going to do about a
>dozen and we hope to be among them.
>Year twenty/today. The surgeries (two unilateral) were successful. the
>dyskiinesia is gone. On Sunday 5 days after the surgery we walked
>togeter to the communion rail and delivered the bread and wine. There
>were tears of joy and disbelief everywhere. This truly was a miracle.
>We had not been able to do that for nearly ten years.
