{"id":1452,"date":"2023-10-28T13:50:12","date_gmt":"2023-10-28T20:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/?p=1452"},"modified":"2024-01-26T08:39:44","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T16:39:44","slug":"parky-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/2023\/10\/28\/parky-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The<span style=\"color: #000080;\"><em> spirit of our times seems to urge us that we should let it all hang out. I don&#8217;t know about that as a general policy but I have posted this piece on a recent diagnosis of my own which I invite the curious or the merely morbid to read:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Diagnosis<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m in the early stages of real Parkinson&#8217;s (PD), not <i>Atypical Parkinsonian Syndrome<\/i>\u00a0(APS), many symptoms of which overlap with Parkinson&#8217;s and deploy a different, sometimes faster moving array of many of the same disabilities. No, I suffer from the classic variety of this neurodegenerative, idiopathic affliction, one which responds well to dopamine surrogates, at least initially. As the euphemism goes, one based on the model of &#8220;enslaved person&#8221; as opposed to &#8220;slave&#8221;, I am a PWP, a person with Parkinson&#8217;s.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>To be precise, I am not in<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>early <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><i>onset<\/i><\/span> phase, just the early stages. Typically, Parkinson&#8217;s<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>begins around 60, and the average life expectancy following diagnosis is 7\u201315 years.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Since I&#8217;m 78, this means I could live till 85-93, give or take&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m hoping that I belong in this category: <span style=\"font-size: 1rem;\">&#8220;Individuals with mild motor-predominant Parkinson disease (49%-53% of individuals with Parkinson disease) have mild symptoms, a good response to dopaminergic medications (eg, carbidopa-levodopa, dopamine agonists), and slower disease progression.&#8221; &lt; <\/span><a style=\"font-size: 1rem;\" href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jama\/article-abstract\/2760741\">https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jama\/article-abstract\/276074<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Imminent death is the lot of all 78 year olds, especially males. We are collectively entering the end game, not many chits are left to play. It follows that a diagnosis of PD can be enlightening. It further focuses attention on the facts of life and dying, on how to live (out) the time remaining.<\/p>\n<p>Once diagnosed, I bought and have devoured a copy of <i>Neuroscience for Dummies<\/i>. I realized, as only a humanist dummy can, how much science there is which is worth knowing. Now there&#8217;s so little time in which to learn.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p>Here are two succinct webpages on PD:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.narayanahealth.org\/blog\/parkinsons-disease\/amp\">https:\/\/www.narayanahealth.org\/blog\/parkinsons-disease\/amp<\/a>\/<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.narayanahealth.org\/blog\/what-is-parkinsons-disease\/amp\/\">https:\/\/www.narayanahealth.org\/blog\/what-is-parkinsons-disease\/amp\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The spirit of our times seems to urge us that we should let it all hang out. I don&#8217;t know about that as a general policy but I have posted this piece on a recent diagnosis of my own which I invite the curious or the merely morbid to read: Diagnosis I&#8217;m in the early &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/2023\/10\/28\/parky-5\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Diagnosis&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1452"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1631,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452\/revisions\/1631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}