A Walk in the Park

The Fall From Grace

It started on the stairs at the F5 Tower. I was scrambling up a flight of stairs like I’d done thousands of times in my life, having grown up in and living in many two-story houses and working in multi-level office buildings throughout my life, and combining that experience with my athletic abilities, honed from years of sports, I navigated stairs with great ease. So, it caught me quite by surprise when I caught my toe and tripped landing with a thud on the stairs at work. I didn’t think that much of it at the time, but that was the warning shot across the bow. I fell once more about a month later and around that same time my wife Irena and my friends at work started asking me about my gait and posture and was I ok?

So that got it on my radar and on my next Dr. visit, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. I say diagnosed but that is a bit of a misnomer, as there is no test they give you and it returns a, ‘you have Parkinson’s’ diagnosis. What my doctor did to me was observe me and then give me some Parkinson’s meds, ‘to see if I got better.” It seemed like an odd approach, but the meds did help and that started me on the path of getting treatment.