Yesterday I had a five hour test to measure my carba-dopa levels in NY. I was not supposed to have any medication after midnight-something I've never done since I found out I had Parkinson's. (There is no definitive test for it.) Because I'd had amnesia the NY doctor decided I should have this test to measure my carba-dopa levels. Jordan and I took a car service in from Brooklyn, and went to Lennox Hill Radiology. It was a shock to see how small and crowded the waiting room, the changing room, everything was compared to UCLA and Cedars-Sinai. There is just no comparison-really. Admittedly this was a radiology outpatient service, but still, no comparison.
Jordan was very good in getting them organized. Essentially she told them that I'd never done this before (gone without my medication), and that I couldn't just sit in the waiting room for 4 hours, I had to be observed. Shawna, the technician who was doing the test was really sweet and she worked it out that I could go to one of the rooms with a reclining chair and that I would be observed.
One of the rooms, off a very narrow hallway, turned out to be a technicians room with screens and a couple of rooms that basically just fit a reclining chair, and a big door that closed between you and the technician. I was essentially squeezed into this teeny room and the door was shut! I felt claustrophobic.
So what I did was to go to the bathroom every half an hour and I'd meet people I'd talk to in the hallway. There was Sylvia, a teacher in the city in her forties who was getting a breast exam and who I learned had her 100 year old grandmother living with her!
Then there was Ricky, 60, who was with his mother, Carol, aged 87, who'd raised Ricky and his 2 brothers as a single parent. She lived in the East 70's in a rent controlled apartment for 46 years by herself.
"She goes up and down 4 flights of stairs every day by herself. She was wearing half nylons and she slipped on the parquet floor and now she needs Xrays" Ricky told Sylvia and myself as Carol undressed in this teeny, teeny half closet off the narrow hallway.
We sat there talking for about an hour waiting, each one of us, for various reasons. It turned out we'd all been raised Catholic. Ricky was quite a talker.
"I went down to Florida, but came back to help mom. When I was a kid you'd never do 'somethin' without your mother finding out about it. All the other mothers would watch our for you and tell your mom. But I didn't raised my kids in the city, I went out of the city up to the mountains."
Carol comes out in her gown."I don't like not wearing my clothes."
Ricky"It's just for the test mom!"
"I know" Carol answers as she paddles down the hallway.
I tell them I'm here with my daughter who has twins. Everything seems very strange to me in NY, but I don't get into that.
"I can't stay with my grandkids more than 3 days, when I'm with their mother. If it was just me, they listen to me. But with their mother, they don't listen. I can't do it. We used to bend down so my mother could hit us!"
And on and on we talk until they go and its time for my test. It's now 1:30, and I've been at this place since 9am. I am to lay on this narrow hard surface and keep my head still for 32 minutes. I think I can do it but then once the test starts my legs are shaking. I wonder how I will make it. I guess I do have "Parkinsons" I think. Too bad, maybe the NY doctor, who had some questions about my PD had been right. But now with my legs shaking I had to rethink the whole thing. Too bad. But the good news was I made it through the test and I made it back to Brooklyn.
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