HRSC

From Shaking to Hiking: My Deep Brain Stimulation Journey

Before Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), my life was... well, miserable. Parkinson’s had progressed fast, and I was losing control — literally. I was taking 300 dopamine pills a month and still couldn’t stop the shaking. Eating felt like a comedy bit gone wrong — picture me trying to eat peas with a spoon, only to have them launch all over the floor and myself. You get the idea. Funny, maybe. But also exhausting.

At the time, my wife and I were living in Naples, Florida. But we noticed something: all the top doctors seemed to be in Houston, Texas. Meanwhile, my doctor in Florida wasn’t exactly inspiring confidence — he kept warning me about scary infection rates with DBS and pushed me to go to Tampa instead. It just didn’t sit right with me.

So, we made a bold move. We sold everything, bought a fifth wheel camper, and hit the road. We eventually landed at a campground outside Houston. One day, while browsing the internet, I stumbled across a TV interview — a Houston doctor and his head nurse were talking about DBS. Turns out, this doctor had performed over 500 of these surgeries with only a 1% infection rate (when the average at the time was 25%). That was enough for me — I scheduled an appointment.