How we first found out

Dad had always been mom’s primary caregiver up until about two years ago when we got a call from mom’s hired caregivers informing us that it was dad, not mom who was requiring assistance with day-to-day activities and tasks. My sister and I had moved both mom and dad closer to us into an apartment for seniors, so it would be easier and faster for us to care for them. Dad had always been active though suffered a lot from what we thought was a sciatic nerve problem which on some days would cause him excruciating walking difficulty. Dad for many years, but only a handful of times also suffered from episodes of vagal nerve syncope, which we later found out that the vagus nerve is strongly linked to Parkinson’s Disease. The caregivers would notify us that dad was on the floor or dad was having great difficulty walking or that dad couldn’t make it to the bathroom-“hold on, this isn’t the dad I know.” Our dad was not too long ago driving and running errands for mom, cooking, and showing up at my kid’s sporting events and birthday parties. Now dad, not mom is requiring assistance with all activities of daily living (ADL’s). We suspected it might be Parkinson’s, and so did Dad’s doctor who prescribed him a medicine that would slow the disease’s progression, but we weren’t positive until we took dad to a neurologist who confirmed our worst fear, Dad did in fact have Parkinson’s Disease.