Mesa Musings:

After returning home from a trip a few months back, I retrieved a slew of messages on my answering machine.

One featured an unmistakable voice. It was my best friend from high school and college. We hadn’t seen each other in nearly a decade, and hadn’t conversed by phone in two years.

As I listened to the message, I detected a hint of desperation in his voice. He asked me to get back to him ASAP.

He’d called 10 days earlier.

Bob (not his name) and I grew up a few blocks apart on Costa Mesa’s east side.

We’ve known each other since we were 15. We played sports together, went to high school and college together, worked for a time for the same employer, and stayed in touch after marrying. We’re both grandfathers and, to my astonishment, we now both share a particular human condition — one we’d gladly unload.

The last time we spoke, two years ago, I was getting ready to retire. Bob called to express his best wishes. It was then that I shared with him that I’d been diagnosed two years earlier with Parkinson’s disease. That diagnosis played a role in my decision to retire.

Bob seemed genuinely concerned.

“It’s OK,” I quickly assured him. “I’m doing well. I’m OK with this.”

Parkinson’s is a degenerative brain disorder that occurs when certain nerve cells die or become impaired. The cells produce a chemical — dopamine — that facilitates smooth, coordinated body movement.

The disease has no known cure, and patients exhibit such symptoms as tremors or shaking, slowness of movement, rigidity or stiffness, and balance difficulties. Other signs can include a shuffling gate, cognitive problems and muffled speech.

“Just wanted to see how you’re doing,” he said when I responded to his recent voice message. But, something was amiss. “I’m fine,” I said. “Life is good.”

There was an awkward pause.

“What’s wrong?” I finally blurted out.

For months he’d been depressed, he said, and was experiencing Parkinson’s-like symptoms. His symptoms intensified over time, and he felt co-workers were beginning to notice. He hadn’t seen a doctor.

I understood his state of mind. When I first became aware of my own symptoms, I avoided a doctor, too. I was in denial.

Bob described his condition, and I told him he needed to see a neurologist.

“It sounds like Parkinson’s to me, but you’ve got to see a doctor,” I urged. Ironically, Bob, Michael J. Fox and I all began with the same first symptom — a twitching finger.

Bob saw a physician a couple of weeks later, and our suspicions were confirmed.

Parkinson’s exists in my family. My great-grandmother on my mother’s side had “palsy,” manifested by prominent tremors of the hands. She went undiagnosed, but we strongly believe she had Parkinson’s. She died in the early 1950s of cancer. My dad had Parkinson’s and died of the disease three years ago. Though I was diagnosed a year before he died, I never told him.

Parkinson’s doesn’t seem to run in Bob’s family.

So, is it pure coincidence that the two of us, who grew up and shared so much in common, would later develop the same uncommon — though not rare — malady? As a friend of mine is wont to say: “It is what it is.”

Yeah, but why’d we both get it? Just a bizarre twist of fate?

Who knows?

Bob and I have reconnected. We talk weekly, and he’s becoming involved with my Parkinson’s support group. I’ve learned that it’s important to be linked to others who share my condition. We encourage and pray for each other, and discuss feelings and experiences.

My father, as he walked down this road, never joined a support group. In fact, he never knew a single fellow Parkinson’s sufferer. We didn’t always know what to do for him — or what to say. We should have insisted that he attend a group. Only now do I fully appreciate the enormity of that misstep. That won’t happen to Bob. As I told him recently: “Parkinson’s is bad, but there are things that are worse. You can deal with this. I’ll help you.”

We need not be alone in facing life’s battles.

JIM CARNETT lives in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays.