The picture was taken 10 years ago yesterday - on our wedding day.
I didn’t put up the 1 month report yesterday because it was our 10th wedding anniversary.
To surprise my wife on our anniversary yesterday, I hired an (opera) singer and her keyboard accompanist to come over to our house. She sang. Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon and Garfunkel,) Unchained Melody (made famous by Todd Duncan of the Righteous Brothers) and Leonard Cohen’s, Hallelujah.
I was diagnosed with essential tremor in 2010. My ‘girl friend’ at the time doubted the essential tremor diagnosis. She was on the faculty as the Director of the Women’s Health Program in the Department of Nursing at the U of Minnesota and wanted my diagnosis reviewed by the head of neurology at the U of MN, so she put me on her health insurance policy and made an appointment with doctors at the U. In the interim, we got married. I was diagnosed with PD 6 weeks after our marriage.
Is that LUV or what?
One month after having the PTT procedure on the other side of my head, I am experiencing some improvements and some regressions. My biggest problem is gait initiation, followed by balance, followed by speech, followed by right hand tremor, followed by my walking.
Most often, I need to push off on something to get started and then I sometimes need to run to the nearest wall to catch myself because once I get moving, my balance does not take over. If I get up slow enough, I can walk without having to catch myself. My balance may be improving. My speech varies, sometimes causing me to slur my words, oft times being undetectable. My right hand tremor initially all but disappeared, but it back now. I am unable to drink or eat with it. When I walk, I shuffle my feet too much.
My right side feels relieved of stiffness and rigidity, meaning mostly my whole body is relieved. My right arm swings fully. My left arm swing has diminished.
I am not unhappy with my condition. I am completely confident each of these deficits will improve over the next couple months. I have not lost faith.
Written by
MBAnderson
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Happy anniversary, I love the songs you picked to celebrate the day!Thank you for the up date on your FUS PTT, I hope you continue to have improvements of your symptoms!
Congratulations, Marc. Great picture. May you two be blessed with several more decades of happiness.
Regarding your PTT, it is only a matter of time before results show up.
BTW, I have always been hoping that what I have is Essential Tremor & not Parkinson's and had/have expressed the hope that I have probably been misdiagnosed 😂 LoL. The grass is always greener on the other side 😊
Beautiful picture Marc and a very romantic anniversary too. I hope that you will both have many more happy years together. Fingers crossed for the progress in your health that you deserve. Chrissy
What a lovely way to celebrate your Anniversary I love all those songs. My son sang Hallelujah at a wedding ceremony in London made everyone emotional. It must have been for you and your wife too. Thanks for your update on your FUS, pleased to hear of your progress and I m sure over the coming months you will continue to improve.
That’s a beautiful picture and what an incredible anniversary. You’re a very lucky man. I’m sure you will improve; I think it’s just gonna take some time.
Marc congratulations to you and your wife on your 10 year wedding anniversary. I pray your gait and balance resolves soon. Use a walker all the time. I know too well the danger of a festinating gait. Marc your knowledge and willingness to share is what makes you a guru to many of us. Thank you for being the pioneer in these new treatments. Take care my friend.
That is a wonderful story and you definitely have a keeper there! You two look beautiful together and I can see where the existence of your wife gives you reason to stay focused on getting better and facing the challenges of life together!
Happy Anniversary to both of you and I wish you many more to come!!!
Congratulations - 10 years! Lovely picture! Both look very happy. Don't lose faith, don't lose hope. Sometimes faith and hope are all we have aside from the love of our special people in our lives.
A beautiful write up and a happy Anniversary to you both. Of course we all want to hear you have been cured, but of course time will tell and we will be cheering you on from the sidelines. Wishing you continued success Marc!
Hi Marc. Congrats on your anniversary. Be patient, one month is a very short time, after all it still is a brain surgery, two with one year apart. Speech issues are common (i notice the same too), and some of my symptoms who had disapeared and came back are starting to vanish away again. Today i realized that my urinary urgency has gone, felling normal again, and it has been a gradual process. Thank you again for your brave update and be patient, things will be better, they need the time they need to work out!
Such a beautiful picture and story too. Happy anniversary! Hope you have many more of them to celebrate. Thanks for the update. You’re an inspiration to us all.
A beautiful story of love and commitment. Congratulations to you both. It sounds like you are experiencing many challenges following the PTT procedure but I hope that you soon start to see major improvements. Wishing you and your lovely wife joy in each other’s company for many years to come.
Happy Anniversary! The story of your wedding and diagnosis is one of the greatest true love stories I have ever heard. Thanks for continuing to inspire us!
Marc, thank you for your very through feedback on your experience with this procedure. I believe it will be helpfull to hundreds of people world wide including myself. You are by far the best unbiased source of information on this procedure I have found.
Must have been love at first sight, Marc! You two look beautiful together. HAPPY 10TH ANNIVERSARY and wishing you and your wife to celebrate your Golden Anniversary.
You are an inspiration to all the good people here on HU, along with everyone who had either PTT or DBS. Your body and brain need to adjust after the PTT, I suspect. I am confident you will completely heal! Have faith and hope.
The picture of you and your beautiful wife and your care for one another show how deeply palpable love can be. You are truly blessed. Congratulations. Thank you for your update. Looking forward to hearing even baby steps of progress .
Congratulations on your wedding anniversary, i pray you have many more happy great years together"I'm not unhappy" can I interprete that as a borderline satisfaction?
I'm concerned though that after your second PTT procedure and as well as spending well over $60,000... you don't have a slam dunk success, instead the picture is mixed, why is that? Or put another way. .. what is the verdict on PTT for treating PD?
I'm 75 y.o. and otherwise healthy, without other comorbidities. If it gives me another 5 years of freedom, I'll be happy. I will be at my "sell by" date by then and if I make it to 80 still able to find joy in my daily routine, I'm not one to complain about not having had enough.
We don't know yet what the verdict is for me. The next few months will tell. I am still confident it will be about what I expected. I am already at 60%. In the end, it will provide me about 70% to 80% relief.
If I keep scoring points with my wife, I'll surely make it 80%+.
Lovely song choice. Congratulations to you both! Your story says a lot about your wife, who married you when you were in between diagnoses. I admire her a lot.
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