Ida.....
While I had a unilateral pallidotomy 4 1/2 years ago, I experienced
none of the problems you've mentioned having had so cannot
offer you any advice or information among those lines.
However, I have a thought to share with you and also a comment
about something I noticed during the 4 years I ran my own online
service (a 16-- incoming-phone-line BBS) <a computer "Bulletin
Board Service," for those who may be recent converts to the
online world> which had 6 full-service chronic disease BBSes on
the system plus one social BBS. Plus there was also the
additional 2 years I was forum manager on MSN's "Chronic Disease
& Disorders Forum."
First, the thought: I worked out of my home and while there were
35 volunteer staff and 2 paid employees, I made all business-related decisions
and was essentially the heart and soul of my BBS (and
that is usually the case with the systems operator on that kind of
system)
I had the pallidotomy at 2 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 24, '94, and was
back in my home office, working online with all 16 phone lines active,
by 11 a.m. on Tuesday, albeit, in a bathrobe and slippers, and a
multi-colored beanie-style "propeller hat" on my slightly aching and
partially shaved head! (I'd received the hat as a gift from some techie
friends just before the surgery and I LIVED in it the first coupla weeks
when everyone was dropping by to visit me... We all gotta lot of
laughs from that silly hat!).
Ooops! I digress.... Anyway, from the moment I returned home after
the surgery, I was very busy working at a job that demanded I be
there 14 to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. Also, members of my
BBSes were ALWAYS dropping by to visit - even late at night
because they knew I'd be right there in the office, monitoring the
computers (there were three), the system, phone lines, chatting
online with members, hosting 2 "real-time" games online each week,
and bouncing hackers off line regularly, etc.
I believe I was SOOOOO busy from the moment I got home from
Loma Linda Hospital after the pallidotomy that I honestly didn't
have TIME to THINK about the many minute changes that took
place within my body after the surgery. In fact, I can only
PRESUME they took place because everything I've learned about
pallidotomy prior and since the surgery claims they do. I'm sure
IF I'd had the time, I'd have prolly got more into what my body and
mind were feeling.
In retrospect, I'm GLAD I was too busy to think about what I'd gone
thru - I just had the surgery and went immediately back to pounding
them keys!
NOW the comment based upon the online BBSes and MSN forum:
You name the disease, and I can pretty much assure ya that during
those 6 years SOMEONE would come along within a few days who
had it. Name the surgery, and someone was scheduled to have
THAT, or had JUST had it.
There was an almost UNIVERSAL response to surgery for a major
disease such as PD, open heart surgery, cancer, MS, scleraderma,
and a myriad of other nasty illnesses --- EVEN if the results of the
surgery was POSITIVE, a great many folks became tearful
post-surgery. Many got depressed temporarily, a number gained
weight (GONG! <--- Bell rings over Barb's head as a reminder of
THAT) <YUCK!>, craved sweets - particularly chocolate, and most
seemed to compulsively apologize to everyone for feeling
emotionally down when they thought they shouldn't feel blue.
Based upon that, I don't see what you've described as being
abnormal. Step out of the "PD box," and look at the larger picture
and hopefully you'll be able to see that many, many other post-surgical
individuals have gone thru similar experiences as you,' me, and others
have had.
Barb Mallut
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From: Parkinson's Information Exchange on behalf of Ida & Andre Kamphuis
Sent: Saturday, March 28, 1998 8:24 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN
Subject: Re: TV Debut Delayed a Bit,attachments and pallidotomy
At 01:55 20-3-98 -0500, you wrote:
>I am looking for anyone who has undergone a pallidotomy in order to
>exchange information. My husband has recently had one and we wish to
>communicate with others to compare results. Thank you.
Jon,
I could not open your attachment. I would like to discuss the resuts of
pallidotomy on or of list, so could you resend whatever was in that
attachment as regular e-mail
But first I have a question for everyone with a hole in his/her head.
Speaking some other people wo did have a pallidotomy, a symptom was
reported wich I
call for better or worse "emotional instability". Before this I had a
question about someone who could hardly stop eating. Other reported
symptoms are, irritability, being quarrelsome, tense, I recognised that too
and I can add to this much crying, wich is very "not me" This symptoms
were, at least in my case temporarely. It seems easy to interprete those
symptoms as being psychogenetic. One has gone through an emotional
experience, but it is my impression that could not be the only cause,
because in other emotional circumtances which belong to the life-experience
of every PWP, these symptoms had not shown up.
So my question to the whole "hole in the head gang" is: who does recognise
this
and to people who have some knowledge of neurology: is it possible that the
symtoms I mentioned are caused by some activation of those parts of the
limbic system,from which emotions are ruled.
Ida Kamphuis
n
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Vriendelijke Groeten / Kind regards,
Ida Kamphuis mailto: [log in to unmask]
