Joan

I am a wife to an amazing man. I am a mommy to 3 great kids, who have given me 5 grkids. I’m in the prime of my life. Working ungodly hours and then I started having weird things go on in my body. Oh by the way I’m a nurse…have been for 20 years. I started getting a tremor in my right hand. At first I could hide it. I got to the point where I felt I was a danger to my patients. I could no longer start IV’s. I loved doing that and drawing blood because I was good at it. Other things started to come with the tremors. My foot started to drop. I was tripping over things that never used to catch my foot. My shoulder froze and was painful. I knew in my mind that something was not right. My symptoms progressed. I have a friend who is a PA who I went to talk to as a sounding board. He calmed my fears. He told me that it’s probably just working so many hours and the new diet I had started that was 500 calories a day. He suggested I go see a neurologist and try some meds for the tremors. Well being a nurse, I didn’t want to be on any meds that would zoink me. I went to that drs. appt. fearful because I had a hunch I knew what he was going to tell me. The doctor did all his tests and listened to my history. He then very quietly asked me what I thought was going on. I looked at him with fear in my eyes and said, “I think I have Parkinson’s disease”. He said I was right. He sat there and so kindly held my hand while I cried. Im a full time student now. Changing my career so I can retire.