We all have become acquainted with each other through Parkinson's. While Parkinson's is part of the patchwork quilt of our lives, there were obviously many other pieces of fabric that sum us up.

Look back at yourself before you stumbled into the world of Parkinson's, a time when you walked gracefully, had unlimited goals for the future, and felt you were almost invincible. Handicaps were for other people. You were solid.

I know that right before I had that first twitch of my thumb, I was looking forward to breathing more easily financially. Our younger child had finished college, I was loving my job as a teacher, I felt competent and smart, I had a good husband, and I believed my friends, family, and co-workers respected and liked me. When I look back on those days now, I liken myself to one of the people who stood on the beach watching the tsunami rage toward them without a clue, mindless of what was to hit them. You know, ignorance really is bliss.

What were you like when PD was merely imminent, not actual?

Ann

Ann,
Thank you for this wonderful question asking everyone to look back at who we were before PD. I like to add a little more: How do you view yourself now and how different are you from that person before PD? I hope people respond to this thread. I, personally would love to include this thread in our PD book, of course with author's consent. Let me start.

I was diagnosed with PD almost 6 years ago. Prior to PD diagnosis, my personal and professional life was going so well, our beautiful daughter was born, nice home, faculty position and good research projects, good friends and colleagues, travels like we planned ....well, everything I wanted in life and more! A couple of years of bliss, I developed rotator cuff tears in my right shoulder, hand swing disappeared, my beautiful handwriting was disappearing, friends and family noticed that my movements were becoming slow. I self diagnosed it as PD which the neurologist confirmed....
Went thru a tough time after that , didnot want to burden anyone with my PD, gave up my job, moved back to India so that my daughter will have extended family to rely on after I am gone.....Two years post-PD diagnosis were the worst, I became a person I couldnot recognise as me nor could any one else. But fortunately I got out of that hell and regained my life.
How do I view myself now and how different am I from before PD?
I am still the same old stubborn, strong willed person, now the goals are different...PD has slowed me down but still try to do things I like, still learning to accept my limits and ask for help, but I will not give into PD, I will do what ever it takes to fight it. I enjoy every day of my life with my family, take a day at a time, no long term plans. I am glad I became part of this forum and feel I am doing something positive to keep me going!

Thanks
Girija

First symptom was 1992. Age 39. A slight tremor in my right hand as I raised a glass to my lips gradually became an inability to walk by 2000.

In 1992 I was at the end of the Decade From Hell. It had started with my father's suicide just months after my marriage. Life went on as my wife and I remodeled an old farmhouse, sold it, used the equity to buy an old trailer, bought some very rural property to move it to, gutted it and remodeled, stood in the rain and watched it burn everything that wasn't on our backs, lived in a small camper as we tried to turn $8000 of insurance into a house, moved in with paternal grandparents to help them deal with her terminal cancer, got a call Halloween night that the rural house was on fire, total loss to arson, wrestled with insurance company for a year, cared for and buried four grandparents over eight year period, wife's health problems put her in a wheel chair for six months with an unknown future, had a house built, moved in. Oh, and had been running the small family business the whole time. Vacations? Hah! Boy, was I stupid!!

You see why I suspect stress in all this? Anyway, the light years leading to 2000 were a little better though filled with problems of a more mundane nature.

I guess I still share some things with that former self just not so excessive. I've learned to accept my limits, that I don't have to be a hero, and that the world spins at the same rate whether I'm pushing or not.

Ann, I somehow missed this one, and you post is wonderful, as are the answers so far.

I was at Uni doing my (very late) degree in Art and Design, full time and with a 3 year old! My husband was in the middle of a breakdown, from which he never really recovered, and which was the precursor of the end of our relationship, which was a very slow freefall lasting several years. I was a very active and engaged full time mother, wife, student, gardener, artist, you name it!

I had looked after myself all my life, good quality food, not too much chemical input, plenty of exercise. My expectations were that I would go from university into work to bring in a second income - I did this but wound up being the sole provider, that I would grow old as parent and partner - I am still a parent, but on my own with it, and miss the man my partner was dreadfully, he is very changed and no longer in my life, or sadly in my son's life. I saw myself as having a very active life into old age, on the basis of having looked after myself. I now see this as having been a very naive assumption. I am fortunate in that I am still here, and still at this point mobile, of my closest friends there are several who are not here and several much more unwell than me. Most of all I think I had that immortal feel that you have when your life has not been challenged in any way......... I think I miss that most, the feeling of everything being possible...........

Lindy

Lindy,
I think you captured the critical thing for me. "The immortal feel that you have....the feeling of everything being possible." I've had many jobs in different professions throughout the years. And very long-lived parents (both into their 90s). So when I hit 50 I still felt I had many more years to find my place in work and the world. When diagnosed in 2001, that open window of possibly 40 years to figure things out, started to close and if closed fully seemed cloudy. Now the prospect of living into my 90s seems more a threat than an opportunity. But if I stay in today, I'm ok. I realized this weekend that just before diagnosis, I could no longer touch type and had hand-written a major speech. This week, given medication and exercise, I can touch type and did deliver a 20 minute talk without many obvious symptoms. So, who knows what my future will be, today is more than ok and I would not have envisioned this possibility.

Anne,

This is a very thought provoking thread. What was I doing prior to all this starting?

I had a nice job, which started in 1998 with then Polaroid Graphics Imaging. This was the graphics division of Polaroid Corporation. I was their desktop PC technician and finally their network administrator. I was responsible for all the desktop machines, printers, network health, workstations, servers, Apple Macintoshes, Sun workstations, and probably anything else with a keyboard. I was on call 24/7 365 days per year, even while on vacation. Who took vacations? I hadn't had a real vacation in 10 years. I had worked for myself, or rather the family business prior and never had time to take a vacation. The intervening jobs in between were second shift operations jobs, which put me on call all the time, and the swing shift position, which burned me out was a blast. Anyway, I was making the most money I had ever made in my life, I even bought a house with my brother. I was studying piano and even taking night classes as well as consulting on the side. If I didn't have 26 projects going at a time, I didn't know what I was doing. I had even started a real model railroad so I could operate my fine collection of N-scale trains.

Then it started... In late 2000 I had a weird headache. The top of my head was numb and I felt dizzy. An MRI and CAT scan showed nothing and I was told it was stress and a migraine. In mid 2001 I had pneumonia not once , but twice. This took a physical toll on me and slowed me down. For some reason I could never really get my energy back. I had also developed increased cramps in my legs and stiffness, which I contributed to long distance bike riding, cross country skiing, and very long woodland hikes.

In late 2002 I blacked out unexpectedly while working my my sister's PC. I woke up with a numb right side and uncoordinated hands. A subsequent ultrasound showed normal arteries, was told it was a migraine, but a growth was discovered on my thyroid. The cramps and spasms got worse and my right big toe turned in, which was blamed on my former rebuilt clubbed foot. I was no longer studying piano and I had dropped from my night school classes. I was too tired and exhausted mentally and physcially to go on. My model railroad become difficult to work on. I spent more time picking things up that I dropped, and when I tried to paint or glue something, I had a real mess. One side of the object would come fine, but if I tried to paint elsewhere, the brush would kibbie in my hand and I'd smear everything. I wasn't very coordinated anyway so I attributed it to my clumsy hands. During this time, my piano playing became inconsistent. My hands would lose their coordination, and I would get confused. I thought it was all the things that were going on. There were good days and bad days, but mostly bad with that relentless fatigue. I was sleeping a lot and doing a lot less.

A diagnosis of mixed papillary-folicular thyroid carcinoma in early 2003 sent me over the edge. This was my undoing, and probably my stess factor. I had the surgery immediately much to the amazement to my primary care doctor. He said I could have waited, but I wanted it done. In May 2003, the left side came out. The day I went into Lahey Clinc, and not my local hospital for the surgery, both of my feet turned in. I was in pain during the ride over to the hospital, and could barely walk into the lobby.

After the surgery, I felt better, but still stiff. I would get these nasty cramps in my feet, and my hands would get confused. I was also having difficult times getting out of my chair at work. I also noticed stiffness in my shoulders. In July 2004 at my sister's wedding, I had those cramps in my feet again. I could barely walk out to the lobby area of the reception hall to talk with my cousin. We couldn't talk in the main room because the noise was too much to hear or think. The cramps subsided somewhat, but would come and go. Later on during the same weekend, a tremor showed up in my right hand. That's when I finally got scared enough to call my doctor and the rest of the story begins in early 2005.

I never wanted a diagnosis of anything like PD; I only wanted to feel better. I was tired mentally and physically. I was tired of feeling stiff and sore all the time. What I didn't need was a neurologist to give me an attitude, which I had the first time around. It took another year later to finally get a neurologist to work with me and listen, and this has turned out to be the best thing I've ever done.

John