Gaining control
For more than seven years, Steven Kling of Montevideo has lived with Parkinson’s disease. Earlier this year, he had deep brain stimulation surgery, which has made a difference in his life.By Jodelle Greiner
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MARSHALL - Steven Kling of Montevideo couldn't take it anymore, so he had brain surgery to help control his Parkinson's disease.
Kling and his wife, Karen, spoke to around 30 people at the Marshall Area Parkinson's Support Group on Wednesday at the Adult Community Center about the difference that having the deep brain stimulation surgery has made for him.
Kling's movements were fidgety but his voice was clear as he described his journey, lacing his talk with jokes.
Kling was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in September of 2002, but continued to work for John Deere for more than seven years.
"As time went on, I had to take so much medicine," he said, adding he was taking medications to control the side effects of other medications. Some of the medicines interacted with food and he switched to eating smaller meals more often. "I'd had enough of the medication."
Sometimes the medicines just wouldn't work and Kling "couldn't hardly move, I'd have to crawl," he said. "Lots of times, I'd sleep in the TV room on a mattress because I couldn't get up on the bed." Getting to the bathroom was another challenge.
"My left side was the worst, which is the right side of your brain," Kling said.
"It couldn't get much worse," Karen Kling said.
His favorite way to cope was "getting lost in your work so your mind isn't on this Parkinson's all the time," Kling said. He'd figure out ways to solve problems with his tractors.
About four or five years ago, he looked into the brain stimulation surgery and decided not to do it then.
"This surgery is not an experimental surgery anymore," Karen Kling said. "They've done research for 20 years."
But the Klings were also told "the surgery is one of the last resorts because it is invasive," Karen Kling said.
With his symptoms unbearable, Kling decided he wanted the surgery but he had to pass a battery of physical, mental and emotional tests to be considered for it.
"I went in like I was applying for a job," Kling said, adding he shined his shoes, shaved and made sure his hair was combed. "I was applying for this surgery."
He was cleared, but a problem came up a week before the surgery was scheduled: Dr. Kendall Lee of the Mayo Clinic had found a piece of metal in Kling's forehead.
"I've been a mechanic for a long time," Kling told him. Kling figures the metal embedded itself in his forehead when he was working with a pin that "ricocheted around the shop like a bullet." While dodging the pin, Kling never noticed the little piece of metal that "went in red hot."
He talked Dr. Lee into removing the piece that day instead of waiting for the other surgery date. When the nurse got faint, the surgeon asked Karen Kling to step in and assist him, then go get another nurse.
Kling joked with the doctor.
"I'm a John Deere man, so let me know if that piece of metal is green or not," Kling told him, knowing the metal would probably be blood red. After the metal was out, the doctor told him, "It's a bad color."
On March 31 of this year, Kling arrived for surgery at 5:30 a.m. His head was immobilized for the delicate procedure.
"You can feel the vibration of the screws and head frame," he said.
Kling was wheeled into surgery, where he would be awake for about five hours while the doctors figured out where to put the leads into his brain. A neurologist monitored the reactions Kling's body made to the prodding of the leads being inserted.
"My face started to distort like I was having a stroke. I told them and they moved it two millimeters," Kling said.
The leads are wired to the neurostimulator in the upper right side of his chest.
"Instead of a heart pacemaker, you have a brain pacemaker," Karen Kling said.
A Medtronic patient programmer that he carries on his belt like a cell phone regulates the stimulator.
After surgery, "they turn everything off for your brain to heal," Karen Kling said. "You can have a honeymoon period where you feel like you never had Parkinson's" because the brain was so stimulated during surgery.
Two weeks later, a nurse turned on every lead and checked the symptoms. Kling started out receiving .06 volts from the programmer and is now up to 1.7 and 1.5.
"They check several settings to make it as normal as possible," Karen Kling said.
"I think I'll end up about three on one," Kling said, adding it takes five months to take full effect. He's dropped two medicines entirely and has cut back on others.
"It does not stop the disease," Karen Kling said. "He's got electric medicine now. One of our biggest challenges of upping the electronic medicine and lowering the oral medicines is figuring out the balance."
But there are great payoffs, such as more freedom of movement.
"I can move around a lot better than I could before, " Kling said. "I stay outside a lot longer, do the things I enjoy."
