Green describes the man she fell for more than two decades ago, a sales exec with a passion for sports.
“Basketball I played, yeah,” PJ Delaney said, “played a lot of golf over the course of the years as well.”
He also made time for a walk with Diane every morning. It was on one of those walks, she noticed something wasn’t right.
“All of a sudden he started limping with his left leg,” Green said.
PJ thought it was just a basketball injury.
“We sort of ignored it and played with it for awhile, iced it, etc., and then I noticed his left hand was starting to curl,” Green said.
“My left arm was just, some days it was there and some days it wasn’t there,” Delaney said. “It kept bothering me day to day, and I knew something was wrong, so that’s when we had to go get it checked out.”
They saw a neurologist who thought it was a neck injury, recommending surgery.
“We immediately went to a second opinion, which was Mayo Clinic, and that’s what led us on our journey to discover he had Parkinsonism,” Green said.
“I thought I was the epitome of something that can’t break, and it just broke me in half,” Delaney said.
PJ was depressed over the news and says it took months for both him and Diane to accept the diagnosis.
“They led us on a path to the Movement Disorders Clinic at University of South Florida in Tampa,” Green said.
That’s where PJ participated in several studies and started learning more about Parkinson’s and how it would eventually take over his body.
“There were days we took turns at wanting to quit, and the reason being, you go through periods of hallucinations and delusions and things that alter your life that you really don’t understand are a result or symptom of Parkinson’s,” Green said.
PJ’s in his early 60’s and his symptoms include stiffness, pain, muffled speech, and severe dyskinesia in his left leg.
“I’d say they’ve really taken a turn in the last few years with age,” Green said. “He’s not the gregarious, talkative person he once was.”
He takes 18 to 20 pills a day and is no longer driving or golfing.
“The things I loved to do that I was doing before, I can’t do em now,” Delaney said.
Their time spent in the movement disorders clinic offered them a glimmer of hope.
“That’s led us to DBS, or deep brain stimulation surgery,” Green said.
The procedure’s been known to help thousands with severe Parkinson’s.
“I’m hoping that this DBS operation really gives me another breath of life,” Delaney said.
Two days ahead of the surgery, Diane says she’s feeling anxious, excited, and proud.
“He’s my hero. I don’t know that I could get up every day and endure what he does,” Green said.