Mr. Parkinson’s and Me
A Memoir
by
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4 Christmas Eve of 1994 in San Antonio rang in with me sitting in a little apartment alone with the cats. I savored a cigar with a glass of fine cognac. I’m not usually a smoker or drinker, but on special occasions I indulge. Spending Christmas Eve by myself wasn’t special, of course, but I figured I should make the best of it. What else could I do? When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, if you can. Wendy had decided to go visit her parents for the holidays, and she’d made it abundantly clear that I wasn’t invited or even wanted. “I just need time to think, Michael,” she’d said a few days earlier. She ran her right hand through her beautiful golden hair and fixed me with the same stare she gave the cats when they clawed at the sofa instead of their scratch pads. “You understand, right? It’s been very stressful around here lately. I need a break. You need a break. We need a break.” “I don’t understand. We should be together. It’s going to be Christmas time, for heaven’s sake! I don’t want a break! I need you here! With me!”
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About the Book
This is a gut wrenching true story and memoir of a brilliant, witty, humorous, and tenacious UCLA Geriatrician who had his life and relationships challenged through Idiopathic Parkinson's Disease (IPD). His illness began as a vague foot tingling and progressed to the full blown , progressive, and mind boggling illness. Many an individual and hundreds of physicians would have given up. Lost income, abandonment, aloneness, loss of multiple jobs, and faculty appointments challenged his career at every dark unlighted path. Even when he made shoes for every one, and walked barefoot like a Physician empath and for developing an illness was wrongly stigmatized and discriminated against as a Judas of his community, former colleagues, and family. Through spirituality, faith in God, Jesus Christ, the Order of Saint Luke, and the lyrics and music of Bob Dylan, Bizet, Debussy, and Ravel he has survived. Through the miracle treatment of a Deep Brain Stimulator(DBS) and an expert healing hands of a Neurosurgeon and Neurologist this was made possible as we await a cure through scientific medical research. Through infinite challenges and life crisis, this great soul of a man has triumphed over his arch enemy Mr. Parkinson. To this day through his care and compassion for people and humanity he is working defending the dignity and domains of function of the elderly who live in Nursing Homes. Through Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment(CGA) he follows the brilliant stars of the Constellations of Geriatric Medicine as taught to him by Dr. David Solomon and Dr. Joseph Ouslander. The Awesome UCLA Arc Light of Knowledge to this day shines brighter still as a an aura of a million suns to bring independence, joy, and happiness into the hearts, minds, and spirits of the elderly individuals of this planet we call Earth. He dedicates this memoir to the flowers, birds, mountain lions of Western Texas, the Ravens of the chimneys' of the Chisos Mountains, the gulls of South Padre Island National Sea Shore, and most importantly the Moon for his son Luke. SCC