hi all

murray the plausable parky wrote:
> The Tacoma News Tribune, WA
> Monday, June 16, 2003
> Gardner's schedule worries loved ones
> Former Gov. Booth Gardner says keeping busy helps keep him alive.
> But friends who have watched his fight against Parkinson's disease
> are concerned that his packed schedule might be having a less
> salutary effect.
> Gardner has had the disease for perhaps a dozen years, but it's
> progressed dramatically in the past three months.
> "It's a progressive disease, and it's gotten worse", Cynthia
> Gardner, his wife of two years, told the Seattle Post-
> Intelligencer. "I'm not sure his thinking has adjusted to that
> yet." ...
> Gardner, 66, served as the state's 19th governor from 1985
> to 1992, and his love of policy-making has kept him active
> since then. He's drafting legislative proposals for
> higher-education construction with fellow former Gov. Dan
> Evans, teaming with King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng on
> an antigambling campaign, chairing the state presidential
> campaign for former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and heading
> a program to stem child obesity.
> This past winter, he was executive director of Municipal
> Golf of Seattle until the city parted with the management
> group.
> At Northwest Strategies, a local public affairs firm founded
> by his former campaign manager, Ron Dotzauer, colleagues
> sometimes send Gardner home early.
> "It was, 'How are you doing?' and, 'Oh, I'm fine,' and he
> can barely keep his head up" , said Gretchen Aliabadi, an
> account manager who has the office next door to Gardner's.
> "So I sent him home."
> Dotzauer, Northwest Strategies chairman and chief executive
> officer, has resorted to cue cards in an attempt to lessen
> the former governor's workload.
> Every 60 to 90 days, he urges Gardner to list his projects
> by importance on these cards. So far, the list hasn't gotten
> noticeably smaller.
> "I ask him how he's doing, and he still looks up sheepishly;
> he doesn't say no to people," Dotzauer said. "A week and a
> half ago, I asked this question again, 'What can we do to
> slow this down?' The staff is under orders to give him space."
> Gardner has promised to pare his workweek to three days and
> to give up hamburgers, milkshakes and chocolate. He says
> he'll start walking two miles each morning. He just hasn't
> said exactly when this will happen.
> Over the weekend, he and Cynthia moved from Seattle's
> Madison Park neighborhood to Vashon Island, with the idea
> of putting a moat between him and his commitments.
> "You catch me at an interesting time," Gardner told the
> P-I. "I've got to make some hard choices."
> Why not really retire? It's not his style, he said.
> "I love making policy and being a public person. It keeps
> me alive," he said.
> Gardner doesn't deny that he'd like to ignore the disease,
> which afflicts 1.5 million Americans.
> "I have a friend who's eight years older than I am and has
> the same strain of Parkinson's," he said. "As much as I like
> him it's hard to look at him, because I see myself eight
> years from now."
> Though he wasn't diagnosed with Parkinson's until 1995, Gardner
> now suspects he had the illness during his final year
> as governor - and that the disease was responsible for driving
> him out of his coveted position. He was finishing up a
> successful second term and was projected as a landslide winner
> if he ran a third time.
> But he was absolutely miserable, if not unpleasant to be around.
> "I never had any trouble making decisions, other than agonizing
> over personnel," Gardner said. "The last year in office, I hit
> a wall. I was in depression. I stopped making decisions. I
> started delegating everything. I got tentative.
> "I had seven great years, but the eighth year wasn't fun.
> I didn't know I had Parkinson's."
> Had his health not taken such a turn, Gardner said, "I probably
> would have gone for a third term."
> He eventually went public with his disease, spoke about it and
> even lent his name to the Booth Gardner Parkinson's Care
> Center, which opened at Kirkland's Evergreen Health Care Center
> in 2000, and which he regularly attends for checkups.
> Yet Gardner has trouble slowing down and following the rules.
> "A year ago, I told the doctor I felt there wouldn't be a
> relapse and I wanted to get off the medication," he said,
> looking guilty. "She said, 'I read the paper. I know what
> you're doing. I want to double your antidepressant.'"
> His wife and friends wish he would start easing up.
> "I'm working real hard on stepping back and letting him take
> full responsibility for this and how he wants to handle
> it," his wife said. "After all, it's his life."
> (Published 12:01AM, June 16th, 2003)
> SOURCE: The Tacoma News Tribune, WA
> http://www.tribnet.com/news/local/story/3305040p-3336070c.html

the words jump out at me -
*** progressed dramatically in the past three months ***
and alarm bells go off

pd does not progress rapidly all of a sudden
after eight or more years of 'normal' deterioration

i will bet a dozen dollars to donuts
that that three month figure is highly relevant
to mr gardner's current ill health

a change in stress, diet, meds, life-style,
household or environmental chemicals, something
(maybe even 'doubling the anti-depressant')
happened to trigger this sudden downswing

my concern is with booth gardner
my fellow parky
(he is my senior by 10 years age wise
but i am his senior by 8 years pd wise!)

'ignoring the disease'
is simply another aspect of acceptance
or should i say non-acceptance -

and so is busy-ness for the sake of busy-ness -
been there - done that!

right now
this is precisely where the
finesse
and fine-tuning
(don't use a sledge-hammer to tune a  maserati!)
and detective work
and hour by hour symptom charting
(see my can-can chart on my website)
can start to reverse the slide
and get some control back

this is absolutely critical
in pd where clinical depression is a factor (50%)

booth gardner's voice has been heard here previously in re pd
(check out my website's search engine)

i don't want to hear of another tale of woe
such as joe bruckbauer's, greg leeman's or karen bardo's
(whose pd med mismanagement stories are also on my website)


janet
awareness = education = knowledge = power


janet paterson: an akinetic rigid subtype, albeit primarily perky, parky
pd: 56-41-37 cd: 56-44-43 tel: 613-256-8340 email: [log in to unmask]
my newsletter: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newvoicenews/
my website: http://www.geocities.com/janet313/

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