I developed a nervous twitch, or so I thought.

I was married on October 6, 2001. In June of that year I developed a nervous twitch on my left hand. Specifically my left pinky.

Not being one who gets too concerned about things like twitches, I didn't really pay it much attention. As my wedding drew closer, my twitch became more constant, yet practically unnoticeable to everyone, except my wife to be.

Fast forward to January 2002. I go to see my first neurologist, Dr Harshad Moody. After tapping on a table for 3 minutes, I was informed I had Parkinson's disease.

A little background……. My mother was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1996, so I already had a rudimentary knowledge of the disease. Back to 2002…….now knowing what PD can do to you, I decided to seek additional opinions. First: Johns Hopkins - after 2 hours of testing, I was informed that I had Parkinson's disease. Second: Dr. John Ferguson, neurologist at Bethesda Naval Medical Center, - after tapping on a table for 10 minutes and walking up and down a hallway, I was informed that I had Parkinson's disease. Finally: NIH - who after 4 hours of testing declared that I did in fact have Parkinson's disease asked me: "Are you OK".

Jill and I went straight to Hamburger Hamlet, where I allowed myself approximately 5 minutes of "why me" while coming to grips with my new reality. Being a big guy, I am also the tallest in my immediate family, I tried to understand why me and not my 2 older siblings. There had to be a reason.

Well, for me the reason became simple, to help my mom. Being the biggest and tallest in my family gave me the broadest shoulders. While medically the common opinion is that I have "Early onset Parkinson's disease, probably hereditary". Which means I am under the age of 60 and the common opinion being that it may also have been hereditary. There currently is no test to prove this. So with 10% of young people being diagnosed and less than 5% presumably being hereditary, remember there is no test currently to prove this, the doctors told me to go and play the lottery, because I was so lucky.

More important to me, was my mother now feels guilty, thinking she gave her son this terrible disease. So I decided it was time to get involved and here's how: I started my own public non-profit charity.

It is only with the help of GREAT friends and family members that will make this the shortest foundation lifespan in history! From the bottom of my heart and for the rest of my life I will not have the words to express my gratitude, so for now I will simply say………………………..THANK YOU!