FYI, I've been taking Tai Chi, and find it helpful.  If nothing else, it's
very portable, and something you can do anywhere.  A friend in my class, who
happens to have MS, and I are thinking of trying Kung Fu now too.  It's a
little more aggressive, but not nearly so much as Karate, etc. are.  The focus
is on deflecting an attacker's force rather than meeting it head on.  (The
taoist analogy would be like how water shapes (and can even destroy
sometimes!)  its environment, but it is not itself hard, but very pliant.  I
suppose if there is a rigid "PD" personality, something that teaches
flexibility may help!  Just curious, have there ever been any formal studies
of exercise slowing down the pd?  My roomate saw an article a couple years ago
(before I knew I had pd), about a guy who was supposedly fighting it off by
working out like a fiend every day.  I've been diagnosed for 3 years +, and
I'm not on Sinemet yet and still playing soccer, volleyball, running, lifting
weights, and now doing the Tai Chi and maybe Kung Fu and this summer yoga.
Things are slowly changing, including my endurance and reaction times, but I'm
not quitting  yet.  I intend to keep trying new things, for a few reasons:
the greater my repertoire, the better workout I'm getting, the more variety of
stimulus to my brain, no atrophying muscles, a variety of methods I can fall
back on and choose different ones depending on my day to day state, or as my
capabilities change overall, and possibly retrain my brain to use as yet
unexplored regions (kinda like Star Trek... to go where no man (or woman) has
gone before).  Along this vein, I'm also doing alot of PD research and
theorizing, and reading other subjects too, to hopefully stave off most of the
cognitive problems.  One person I really admire is Steven Hawking who wrote "A
Brief History of Time".  He's a physics professor at Cambridge or Oxford who
has ALS, and yet he is one of THE major theorists in modern physical
cosmology.  His mind is as sharp as it gets, even tho' his physical body may
severely limit him otherwise, and he has used his mind to ponder the BIG
questions about how the universe began, etc.
 
One other general comment, I have seen a few references, both here and
elsewhere, talking about  the average number of "useful", "productive," or
"independent" years on average a person with pd has until they become totally
disabled.  I personally believe that these averages are based on historical
data, and alot of advances have been made, both technologically and in our
perceptions of pd and disease (mind/body links), which can blow these numbers
away.  I know I get tired in a way of seeing predictions, while not
necessarily meant to do so, that put limits on us and what expectations we're
supposed to have for our future(s).  The only ultimate limits there are are
those which we either impose on ourselves or let others do so.  I DO NOT
accept these figures as gospel, and I intend to ignore them, lest they
brainwash me, and set my own agenda.  EVEN IF I become totally disabled, I
WILL NOT become unproductive or a burden, I will simply channel my energies
elsewhere.  (I just watched the PBS show "People in Motion" 3-part series on
people with disabilities, that my dad had taped for  me, and I was overwhelmed
by the creativity, ingenuity and perserverance of these people shown on the
show, especially the man who essentially started the whole disability rights
movement and was himself paralyzed from the waist down and on an iron lung due
to childhood polio.)
 
Alot of my drive is due to the fact that my youngest brother died of cancer
when he was five (having gotten sick around 2-2.5 years old), and he fought
hard and lived a full life in 5 short years, so I've got alot more than that
in already, and probably alot more to go.  My parents would not treat him any
different than they did us (excepting of course as was absolutely necessary),
and he supposedly got real mad at my dad once when he (my brother) said
something to my dad about when my other brother and I had our chemo when we
were little, and my dad had to tell him that we didn't ever have chemo.  Boy,
he got mad, and insisted we had, that all little kids got chemo.  My roomate
tells me that sometimes people come to her cuz they don't want to ask me, and
ask what's "wrong" with me.  (My brother used to get MAD at people, including
grown-ups who should know better, staring at his bald head).  I told her it'd
be easier if I had two heads, or none at all, because then it'd be obvious.
It gets frustrating having to constantly be telling people what's "wrong" or
else having them think you're on drugs or something.  I don't deny the pd and
that something's "wrong", but it does vary day to day.  Unless it's a bad day,
I don't notice it.  It's part of me, for better or worse, it's not necessarily
"wrong" (altho' when it's bad I do not alwaays feel this chummy about the
whole thing), and I don't want to be labeled "PD victim" or have to walk
around with a billboard on my head announcing what's "wrong" to people I've
just met.  It gets old explaining over and over...actually maybe the
billbooard would save me the effort, or just carry a tape player with a
recorded message.  I'm just rambling on because that altho' my friends
empathsize, they haven't experienced this, and can't totally relate, and it's
something only someone that's "been there" can relate to.  I really appreciate
having this list for that reason.  Well, enough moaning and tying up
everyone's time.  Adios!
Wendy T.