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Leaving work after a Parkinson's diagnosis
A banking analyst makes the decision to leave his job at the age of 51, two years after being diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease.
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For many years, Bart Narter has been a good friend of Marketplace. As a banking analyst with a company called Celent, he's helped us explain what's going on with the financial industry. But at the age of 51, he just left his job only two-years after being diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease.
On his making his decision to leave work:
"I was diagnosed with Parkinson's in December of 2010, and continued to work but notified my employer that I would not be able to work forever in the role I held. We developed a succession plan and I stepped down when both we had a successor in place and I felt that I really couldn't continue to do the job I was doing at the level it needed doing... One of the major symptoms of Parkinson's is tremors, and I'd get tremors in my left hand which makes it difficult to type. The company made accomodations by providing me with speech recognition software, but it's still not quite there yet and made it very difficult to keep up."
On coping financially with illness:
"[I] have private disability insurance which provides me 100 percent of my income for three months, 80 percent for the next three months, and then 40 percent from that point forward. That's going to be enough for me to live on... So far it hasn't been that hard. I'm very good at compartmentalizing. So far, I'm on full salary, so it hasn't hit financially yet. I think the scariest thing is actually contemplating the fears of inflation because this kicks in until I'm 65 and it's a fixed amount."
I was very interested to hear your story because I've recently been through the same thing. After a pretty big career as the General Counsel for the past 15 years for a bank and and investment company, at the age of 49, I've just started working part time after I was diagnosed with Parkinson's last spring. I also stayed on until my successor started and got comfortable.
Probably the hardest thing for me was to acknowledge that my job performance had been suffering for some time as my executive functioning has gradually diminished. It was subtle, yet I knew something wasn't right for the past couple of years before I was diagnosed. In fact, getting diagnosed was somewhat of a relief, because at least I knew I wasn't going crazy!
Anyway, I admire your courage in coming forward and sharing your story. It's helpful knowing I am not alone in dealing with theses issues.
Jenny Arrigo
I was intrigued by your comment that speech programs
are not up to the task. I use mostly hands-free Dragon
Naturally Speaking for loan documents and to migrate
around the computer and the Internet.
If you can type an occasional character, as you indicated
you could, you would be perfectly able to use Dragon to
be mostly hands-free. With more modifications that can be
used hands-free as well. I use the add on Show Numbers
for migrating around the computer and the Internet. Since
I don't use the most expensive version of Dragon. I also
use KnowBrainer for certain which has helpful recommendations for getting started \commands. There is a KnowBrainer Speech Forum which has helpful recommendations for getting started.
This speech program can handle long documents well. In fact, speech is faster than typing. You do need to have a clear pronunciation and train your program well. I have been dictating documents for well over 10 years. It is easier than ever with this new version of Dragon (#12). I usually dictate into word.
It does have a steep learning curve, and requires patience, but other than that I work by choice and am able to.
Sincerely,
SDavis
