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She runs the blue plastic-encased magnet across her left clavicle, then looks down as her right hand begins a slow, methodic, rhythmic tic.
The magnet crosses her clavicle again and, after a small "jolt," the tic - or tremor - ceases.
When Dixie Pryor's hand began to shake about four years ago, she thought a problematic herniated disk in her neck might be pressing on a nerve. She visited a doctor in Warsaw, who referred her to a Fort Wayne neurologist. There, Pryor said, the doctor ran some tests and left the room. When he returned, she said, he simply blurted out, "You have Parkinson's and I'm going to give you a prescription," then left the room again, leaving Pryor and her husband, Charles, sitting in shock and unsure what the diagnosis meant.
Parkinson's disease, which is characterized by tremors, especially of the fingers and hands, affects an estimated 1.5 million Americans. The nerve disorder also results in rigidity of muscles and slowness of movement and speech. It generally strikes people over age 60.
"There's no prognosis," said Pryor, 59, of North Webster. "Everybody reacts differently ... everybody has different symptoms."
With Pryor, she had the tremors in her right hand and has since experienced the Parkinson's-associated muscle stiffness in her legs.
The tremors increase with stress (her hand shakes faster), so Pryor found herself sitting on her hand in the movie theater or hiding it behind her back when she was speaking to an audience at one of the organizations with which she's involved.
The busy wife, mother and kindergarten teacher wasn't ready for the slow-down Parkinson's presented her (she retired when the shaking affected her writing). Neither, apparently, did her family want to see her lose herself to the disease.
Her daughter and daughter-in-law compiled a list of the top 100 doctors in the United States who were working with Parkinson's disease. Two were located in New York, where her son, Cap, and his wife, Suzanne, reside. A telephone call and six months later brought Pryor to the office of Dr. Stanley Fahn of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.
"I came away (from the visit) not quite as frightened," Pryor said. "I learned more on my first visit there than from all the reading or any of the doctors around here."
Fahn later introduced Pryor to Dr. Robert Goodman, a neurosurgeon at Columbia Presbyterian, and surgery options were discussed. The only choice early on seemed to be a surgery in which a hole was burned into the brain. However, this option leaves permanent brain damage.
In December, however, Goodman presented Pryor with a new option - a surgery in which a stimulator is implanted into the brain.
"I was sold on it almost immediately," Pryor said, "because, if it didn't work, it could be removed with no permanent damage to the brain."
She went home, though, to think about it. And, in February, Pryor said she became "frustrated and mad" because she spilled something across the kitchen because of her shaking hand. Another telephone call was made to say she was ready and, on March 19, the surgery commenced.
This is where the magnet comes into play.
Pryor became only the second person to be fitted at Columbia Presbyterian with a device implanted in her brain to control the Parkinson's tremors. The Activa Tremor Control System by Medtronic had been, at that time, implanted in 113 people with Parkinson's and 83 people with essential tremors at about 20 medical centers in the United States and Europe. The device was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last year.
The six-hour surgery included placing an electrode into Pryor's brain, with a wire running under her scalp, behind her ear and into a stimulator implanted under her clavicle. The hockey puck-sized stimulator is battery-operated and requires the magnet to start it up each morning. A computer was used to set the "timing" on the device for controlling the tremors. The tremors are blocked by a constant stream of tiny electrical pulses to the brain. When initiated, Pryor said that she feels "a rush down the side of my face" from the electricity. The battery is expected to last three to five years before needing replacement.
Pryor was awake during the first portion of the surgery so she could respond to questions and help doctors know at what point the brain probe would stop the tremors. During the second leg of the surgery, Pryor was completely sedated.
When she awoke in recovery, Pryor said her reaction was "Oh, my God, it worked ... (but) I knew it was going to work. It just had to." She said that throughout her experience, she was buoyant and uplifted. The surgery took place on a Thursday, she was released on Friday and "on Sunday we were throwing snowballs in Central Park.
"The doctors are as excited as the patients at this point," Pryor said. "This is a real major breakthrough for tremor control ... I still don't know how it works; it's just a miracle." She will be presented as a "show-and-tell" model at an upcoming neurologists' banquet in New York.
Pryor considers herself a survivor - she battled breast cancer last fall and underwent a lumpectomy and radiation.
While the stimulator makes living with Parkinson's a little easier because of the elimination of the tremors, Pryor said that there's no stopping it and there's no cure. Tests have indicated that Pryor has the disease in both sides of her brain, but the symptoms have only materialized on one side thus far. It is not known when, or if, she will begin to suffer tremors on her left side.
Pryor has donated her brain to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation in hopes of helping other patients after she's gone. Pryor said that she's open to any research that can benefit others, and she's willing to talk to anyone who suffers from Parkinson's or breast cancer to share experiences.
