Episode 9 begins with me falling in the shower. I get to yell at God a little bit when I learn that my sister has terminal cancer. I'm slowing down, dragging out, falling down and bleeding all over a hotel bathroom. And one of my dogs won't stop peeing on the floor! Such is the drama in my Parkinsonian life. Welcome to another episode of "No Doorway Wide Enough" on Podiobooks!

In Episode 8 of "No Doorway Wide Enough", pull up a chair and join me for a delicious "Lump o' Egg" as we sweat our way through Droolfest II -- that 8-day period at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center's General Clinical Research Center when they turn off the Deep Brain Stimulation devices, take away the Parkinson's disease medications... and watch the deterioration!

It's FUN!

(BTW: If you'd like to see some Droolfest video, go to http://www.youtube.com/bschmalfeldt and search the word "Droolfest").

All the deep brain stimulation hardware is in place. Now it's time for the programming. Unfortunately, I live near Baltimore and the guy doing the programming is in Nashville. This makes for some interesting day trips.

Let the programming begin as you listen to Episode 7 of "No Doorway Wide Enough."

(BTW: In this episode -- I SING!!!)

The first two surgeries are done and over with. There's one left, the one they said was "piece of cake, in and out, two hours, no problem." So why did my neck hurt so bad when it was all over with?

Enjoy Episode #6 of "No Doorway Wide Enough." And remember... any donations I receive will go to the National Parkinson Foundation and the DBS Research Fund at Vanderbilt University Medical Center!

See ya on my web site -- http://parkybill.com

In this episode, I take you with me into the operating room for a seven-hour surgery to place electrodes deep into my brain. But first, I have to deal with some jagoff at a bar, try to get a good night's sleep while staring at the grim spectre of death and have a catheter put in. Then, after the surgery, I have to wait many more hours for a hospital room and try to sleep as my brain absorbs the air that got into my skull during the surgery -- snap, crackle, pop!

Then I get to go home.

At Vanderbilt, they do DBS surgery in three stages. In this episode, I have the first stage done... the placement of four bone markers that are screwed into my skull. I walk around with these things in my head for about a week before the main surgery.

Once I was accepted into Vanderbilt's clinical trial, I had to undergo an 8-day stay at their General Clinical Research Center during which my Parkinson's medications would be withdrawn and I would be monitored and studied. At the end of the 8th day, my symptoms would be compared with the symptoms I had on the first day. And then they would reach into the hat and tell me whether or not I would be "randomized" to the surgery group, or the "control" group -- one of the 15 who would continue on the same treatment they had been on before. That way, those who had the surgery could be compared to those who did not.

I called this 8-day period the "Droolfest."

In this episode, I relive it with you.