Man Finds Hope Again After a Parkinson's Diagnosis at 25 Ended His Dream of Becoming a Surgeon (Exclusive)

Joe Salazar was a 25-year-old medical student in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, who had dreams of becoming a surgeon.

But in 2012, he started to have trouble gripping and holding things with his right hand. Then he had difficulty walking — his leg felt heavy and he was dragging it. Next, his face started to droop.

“I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I may be having a stroke,’ remembers Salazar, now 36.

A doctor told him he might have Parkinson’s Disease. Salazar studied his medical school textbooks — and while his symptoms fit, his age didn’t.

His doctor suggested he go to the States to get a second opinion.

He returned home to Brownsville, Texas, and over the next 16 months, visited three neurologists before receiving his official diagnosis in August 2013.

“It was a punch to the face,” Salazar says. “That was the worst news ever. I cried my eyes out for weeks.”

There are nearly 1 million people with Parkinson’s in the United States, and only about 3% are diagnosed with early onset — one of the more famous is Michael J. Fox, who was diagnosed in 1991 when he was 29.

“It is extremely unusual to be diagnosed so young,” says Nora Vanegas, neurologist at Parkinson’s Disease Center and Movement Disorders Clinic at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, who confirmed Salazar's diagnosis and currently treats him. Most patients are over 60 when they’re diagnosed with Parkinson’s, she says.

Salazar spent the next 7 years learning to live with his new condition. He was unable to continue his work as a Certified Nursing Assistant. "I had to quit because I was stumbling, falling, and there was no way."

Then, in December 2020, Salazar got Covid.

“Covid really, really just changed the whole game," he says. "I almost died."

Unable to walk, he was bed-bound for six weeks. Luckily, his wife Martha, 31, was by his side.

"I was blue. I was on oxygen, my hands, my fingers were blue, my ears were blue, I couldn’t breathe.”

He believes Covid advanced the progression of his Parkinson’s 10 years. “I went from walking to chair-bound in a month,” he says, adding that he couldn’t talk or eat because his jaw was so stiff. “Everything was paralyzed.”

His mental health continued to take a hit in February 2021, when he broke his wrist because his bones were so brittle. “I could barely do anything, and it was depressing," he says. "I was in my 30s and I was useless.”

When the medications he was taking to treat his Parkinson’s were no longer working well, his doctor determined he was a good candidate for an FDA-approved procedure called Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS.) The two-part surgery involves implanting a device that sends electrical signals to the brain to help control motor systems.

“It is a very effective treatment,” Vanegas tells PEOPLE. “But the surgery is not a cure.”

Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative progressive disease, she explains, and DBS does not slow down the progression or treat all the symptoms.

Salazar was hesitant and scared; like any surgery there were risks such as infection, bleeding or complications from the anesthesia. There was also a chance that after the surgery, his body could reject the device. Still, it is “a very common procedure,” says Vanegas.  Large hospitals do between 60 and 80 DBS procedures a year, she says. According to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, DBS is the most commonly performed surgical treatment for Parkinson’s.

“We don’t know for sure how it works,” says Vanegas, who is working with the Texas Children’s Duncan Neurological Research Institute to understand more about Parkinson’s and develop better medical treatments.

On May 26, 2021, doctors opened a dime-sized hole in Salar's head and introduced leads with small electrodes into his brain.

The second part of the surgery was June 8, 2021, when the neurotransmitter was inserted. His brain was given time to heal, and in late July, Salazar returned to the hospital to have the battery turned on.

He says he felt the results immediately as the the tension melted away from his muscles.

“I came in a wheelchair, and when I walked out, I was pushing my own wheelchair,” Salazar says. “It was a miracle, honestly. A miracle.”

After the DBS, he was able to start working as a lunch monitor at an elementary school near his home in Brownsville. A few months later, he started teaching math and robotics to third, fourth and fifth graders. He also coaches basketball.

"The DBS really changed my life, it changed everything,” he says.

But it's only one-third of his treatment. He also relies on medication and exercise, which keeps his body strong enough to fight the disease and prevents his balance from deteriorating.

Salazar started to love fitness. He wakes up every day at 4 a.m., takes his medications, then goes to his local CrossFit gym, where he does about a hundred pull-ups and chin-ups. He also boxes, which helps with his balance. He goes to work, then hits the gym for a second time at 4 p.m.  Sometimes he goes three times a day. "Exercise, for Parkinson’s is the number one medicine for me," he says. "It works."

He and Martha now have a son, Joe, Jr., who turns one on July 6.

“He’s my motivation,” Salazar says, adding that when he’s having a hard day, he looks at a picture of little Joe on his phone.

“He’s given me the chance to keep going — to push harder and keep living," Salazar says. "Just keep going.”

Salazar recently shared his story to encourage and inspire other patients at Parkinson’s Education Event for the Latino Community hosted by local hospitals including Texas Children’s Hospital and Duncan NRI.

“The most important thing for people to know is: Do not give up and do not give in,” he says. “Never stop punching, never stop pushing... And please don’t give up.”