15
Before Surgery
Jim McNasby( left), with his husband, Donny Moss, enjoys a renewed sense of independence and a return to beloved outdoor activities after DBS.
battery, the team located the side with the issue. Fortunately, the break was in the portion of the wire in Jim’ s neck, not the brain, so the repair was straightforward, although it still required surgery.
And in January 2024, Jim needed his first battery replacement.“ I thought it would be very routine, and in some ways, it was, but the doctor changed my medication— and that was hard.” Ten weeks later, Jim has recovered fully and reports feeling“ great— 99 percent back to normal.” his DBS and took one or two Parkinson’ s pills a day. Since then, however, two incidents have occurred that keep his DBS more on his mind. In September 2022, his system malfunctioned: unbeknownst to Jim, he had broken a wire connecting the battery to the lead, and within the course of a day his pre-DBS symptoms returned. The next morning, he video-called his neurologist on his cell phone, and she patched in a DBS technologist, and they were able to access and adjust his DBS settings remotely.“ It was like being in a Buck Rogers movie,” Jim says.“ I was in the Catskills [ mountains two hours north of New York City ], my doctor was in Manhattan and the tech was in a parking lot in Paramus, New Jersey, and they were both controlling my brain from afar.” By powering down and restarting each
But normal isn’ t necessarily perfect: Jim occasionally has trouble with his gait and is more cautious these days. Nonetheless, he feels“ a quiet calmness” inside and has regained his sense of independence. He and Donny hike six to 10 miles daily whenever they’ re at their Catskills home, and Jim works out six or seven times a week.“ Recently we were on vacation and I played golf eight days in a row,” he says.“ It was empowering to know that I can still do that.”
Donny says,“ DBS wasn’ t a cure, but it turned back the clock to a time when Jim was far less symptomatic and had a better quality of life.” He adds,“ In hindsight, we should have done it sooner. It was such a radical transformation— so much bigger than either of us could have anticipated. Both of our lives have changed.”