Like boxing legend Muhammad Ali or actor Michael J. Fox, Warsaw resident Mark Sharp, 42, has Parkinson's disease.

Unlike Ali or Fox, though, Sharp can compete in a triathlon.

In fact, just seven months after undergoing a seven- to eight-hour surgical procedure called Deep Brain Stimulation, Sharp ran three miles, swam 0.25 miles and biked 13.5 miles in the Eighth Annual Optimist City of Lakes Triathlon June 23.

"I got Parkinson's about 10 years ago. I was diagnosed about eight years ago. I took medication and the first two years wasn't too bad of a deal. But about after three or four years, it got worse. The medicine quit working. I had on and off times big time. I coached Little League and everything but I couldn't really depend on it doing well or not. A couple of years ago, it got to a place where it was really, really bad," said Mark.

Kelly Sharp, Mark's wife, said "... When the medicine was working, he'd be fine. But the medicine might just stop working. ... If he was at work, he'd have to come home and lay down for a while and wait for the medicine to start working again."

"It was kind of a crazy thing," Mark said, "because, there were some crazy times I'd have trouble at work, I'd have a hard time even working. But, like, during the day my medicine might start working and I'd be able to play softball at night."

Eventually, though, the disease got to a point where it was bad all the time, he said. He took so much medication that it caused his body to have extra, often uncontrolled, movement.

"You go from not having any movement at all to just going crazy. You can't ever sit still, you can't ever relax," he said.

Kelly said, "We'd been going to the Cleveland Clinic and they said he was out of options as far as what the medicine was going to do. And they had come up with this ... recently new surgery, Deep Brain Stimulation."

In the Deep Brain Stimulation procedure, a device called Activa, which resembles a pacemaker, was implanted Nov. 16, 2000, into both sides of Sharp's chest, and the other end of the device was implanted into the subthalamic nucleus of his brain. The trickiest part of the procedure is placing the small electrode in the patient's brain, according to an article in Mechanical Engineering. The electrode sends signals to the brain causing signals to go to the patient's neurons, and stops the uncontrollable tremors of Parkinson's disease.

Since the first successful Activa implant in 1992, Mechanical Engineering reports that more than 9,000 operations have been performed worldwide by more than 230 surgeons. Success rate is approximately 85 percent.

Activa was developed by Medtronic Inc. in Minneapolis.

"So then I got the surgery and it was basically brain surgery. I was awake for the (entire time). There's no sedative or anything, just a local in your head. Then the sedative wears off and it's pretty nasty. If you live through the surgery, you're in great shape," Mark said.

Kelly said, "They implanted two probes. They're not any bigger than the wire inside of a twist tie. And he's got two holes on the top of his head and the wire goes straight down it to the subthalamus. ... It sends off little impulses and corrects all the misfirings in there."

The surgery was successful.

"60 Minutes" is following another man who had the same procedure a couple of weeks ago, and they plan to feature Mark as someone who already had it performed.

"Mark is one of the younger ones who had it done because most people with Parkinson's don't get it until (their) late 50s or 60s, but Mark got it when he was about 30," Kelly said.

"So, basically, the idea was, Cleveland gave ("60 Minutes") my name because I did real well. And seven months after the surgery, I ran in the triathlon in Winona Lake," Mark said.

Footage from Mark's running in the triathlon, as well as pictures and other footage the Sharps will provide to the news program, will be sent to "60 Minutes" for use in the program.

As for Mark's future, he said, "They say they don't really know, that's the bad thing. They said that everyone (who's had the surgery) dies from something else because they're older. ... My doctor, who told me to get this surgery, said they had 10 years out now. They have people 10 years out now who are doing fine."

"What's really good about this procedure," said Kelly, "is that it doesn't damage anything. So, like, if a cure comes along or something better, they can just take it out."

Of course, Mark can't play any contact sports now but can play basketball, swim, bike or run. "It's just amazing," he said of the device and procedure and what it's done for him.

A DePuy employee, Mark has three sons - Jeremy, Jordan and Jesse. He and Kelly are both former Grace College students.

And he's written a book, "Dare To Believe," about his ordeal that he's trying to get printed.

"It's about how God helped me through it. And how people prayed and some people were really, really helpful and amazing," Mark said of the book.

"Having Parkinson's is a really interesting thing because there's times when you're totally normal and times when you're disabled. So you get the picture of what it's like in both worlds. It's really interesting. You really come to appreciate what people with disabilities have to go through yet you have to live a normal life like everyone else because you can't really go on disability because you can work most of the time," he said.

For more information, check out the Web site: www.clevelandclinicmeded.com/deepbrain2/deepbrainhome.htm [[In-content Ad]]