By John Mills

Editors Note:  In honor of National Family Caregivers Month I will be doing a 3 part series on my caregiving experience.  It will be cross posted at Caregiving.com.

My father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in early 2001 and passed away from it 2 years ago at age 83.  His diagnosis was a life changing experience which resulted in returning to my hometown of New York City from the West Coast and eventually becoming his caregiver.

My father, Ken, started to have hand tremors in 1996, an early symptom of Parkinson’s and a number of other conditions.  He was referred to a neurologist who told him he did not have Parkinson’s but prescribed medication to relieve the trembling.  Incorrect diagnoses of this disease are common because there is no test for Parkinson’s.  Doctors are left to make decisions based solely on symptoms. 

For most of the late 1990s my father lived a full and productive life with few signs that he was suffering from the disease.  In retrospect, there were signs my father had Parkinson’s long before it was properly diagnosed.  He had always had tons of energy yet he started to feel fatigued.  He began to shuffle as he walked and his posture became stooped.  These are all symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

In late 2000, my father began to have balance problems due to the Parkinson’s.  Just before a World Series game between the New York Mets and the New York Yankees my father fell off a ladder in his apartment.  He didn’t know it at the time but he had broken a rib and punctured a lung.  A few days later my father was taken to the hospital where a collapsed lung was diagnosed.

This was when we learned that he had Parkinson’s disease.  During the hospitalization the doctors investigated his balance issues that were causing him to fall.  They suspected the disease and referred him to a neurologist who specialized in it.  After a few visits and examinations, the verdict came down that he was suffering from Parkinson’s.

I had a mix of reactions after the diagnosis.  While my father had not experienced major health problems, he was 77 at the time and had not lived a healthy lifestyle.  He had smoked heavily for 60 years and while not an alcoholic, he enjoyed his drinks.  I knew it was inevitable he would come down with some ailment, but I expected it to be either heart or lung related.  Parkinson’s shocked us.

Six months earlier I had made a decision to leave Washington, DC after 13 years and move to Portland, Oregon to join the dot-com revolution. Rather than being just a short plane or train ride from New York City, I was now 10-12 hours away when my family would need me most.

I was not prepared to uproot my new life in Portland, but deep down, I knew there would be a day when I would have to return home to care for my father.  I have two sisters and one lives in the New York City area.  During the time that we learned of his disease, my sisters both had children at home while I was single.  Additionally as the only son, my father and I were extremely close.  So consequently, I would become his caregiver.

In an ironic twist, fate intervened.  The dot-com company I worked for was going through financial difficulties and my old employer approached me about coming back to work for them in a different capacity in their New York office.  It was perfect in many ways.  It provided better job security than I had at the dot-com, and it allowed me to move back to my hometown where I could be close to my father and watch over him.

At the end of 2001, I came back to New York City which turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life.  It allowed me to serve as my father’s caregiver which was a rewarding although difficult experience that I will outline in my next article.  Soon after I moved back, I met my wife, and we now have a beautiful daughter who was born 10 months after my father passed away.