Hi - Jorge Palacio is a great friend who has fallen into some unbelievably hard times. Please read the following and give what you can.

From his wife who is his 24/7 caregiver. ....

My 53 yr old husband of 27 years, the father of my two children, has Parkinson’s Disease. It has taken 5 years to get this diagnosis and he is in the late stages. To say he has been failed by our health system is an understatement. He now has severe skeletal damage and muscles tears. Pain being the most debilitating symptom. He is bed bound. He started having pain and stiffness in his back in late 2020. So much so that he went to the ER. He then went and followed up with his doctor and was started on the normal regimen of X-rays, blood work and steroids. Found he was allergic to NSAIDs. He worked through it because he had to (he owned a landscaping business). Nothing significant was found. Slight degeneration in some discs/normal wear and tear, arthritis. We got the Covid vaccine in May of 2021 and things got worse. Pain and stiffness was excruciating. He stopped his business. He got one steroid injection for his back. 2 days later he had a heart attack on Thanksgiving and had to have 2 stents put in his heart. The pain and the stiffness got worse again after that procedure. January 2022, we then started this never ending fight to find out what was going on with his body. He saw rheumatologists, orthopedists, neurologists (lol), neurosurgeons, and then got second opinions at Mayo with what we thought were the right doctors. Nothing. Everything came up negative and nerve conductions “only” showed an essential tremor. We then saw another rheumatologist and he tells us that it’s osteoarthritis and a possible chronic pain condition. I can say we gave up after that. My husband said to just let him treat with the pain clinic (ablations, trigger point injections, drug treatment) and go to PT. He just needs to get stronger, he said. I let him do this from November 2024 to November 2025. I could see that something definitely wasn’t right now. He was getting worse. My gut feeling is that it was neurological for some time. He has a tremor now, very bad distortion of his torso (he looks like he’s being rung out like a rag) that I now know is called dystonia. He cannot walk, drive, bathe himself, make his food or even leave the house. I began to notice he was losing weight. He also developed neurogenic bowel. We got an appt at his primary care. He weighed 138lbs. He had lost 30lbs in 4 months. We were sent to the ER January 9th 2026. We finally get an ER doctor that sees that something wasn’t right with his legs and he is admitted for the bowel issue. An MRI was performed and emergency surgery was performed for a spinal compression in his neck (C3-C4). Before surgery, he is seen by a neurologist and she sees the tremors, dystonia, masked facial expressions. We tell her he can’t walk, I show her videos I took of his gait and how he barely used a walker. Her conclusion was Parkinson’s Disease. They start treating him with PD meds. He goes to surgery and we are finally hopeful that we are on the right track. Rehab turned out to be awful. They forgot important meds which led to swelling developing and his esophagus closes completely. He is put on NPO - nothing by mouth for 10 days. He is now 128lbs. They put in a peg tube in finally so that he is constantly being fed but they still intend on releasing him on time…5 days later. They release him a day early. They release him knowing his condition is bettered by an IV steroid he’s on for the swallowing. They release him with no steroid prescription and he regresses completely. The Parkinson’s symptoms are way worse than before. Him having an operation of this magnitude is apparently not a good idea while you are in late stage Parkinson’s according to a Parkinson’s Caregivers FB group. There is mention after mention of electing to not have surgeries because they are afraid of symptoms worsening. This is what has happened to my husband. He has trouble sitting up in a wheelchair. He lasts maybe a half hour. One hour on a good day. I have to lift him with a gait belt to get him to his wheelchair, hospital bed and the bedside commode. All personal and private needs are provided by me. He doesn’t qualify for disability due to not having enough work credits. We are using my employer insurance. This all rides on me. All the bills, all the caregiving while working from home 40 hours a week. I was able to get short term disability but for only 90 days. This is all unsustainable. We are the ones who fall through the cracks. It’s a whole system fail.