George,
THANKS for your wonderful e-mail I first noticed today.
Best wishes
Sonia Nielsen
Denmark


NEVER GIVE UP

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> Fra: George Andes <[log in to unmask]>
> Til: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN <[log in to unmask]>
> Emne: Re(2): I'm new
> Dato: 25. december 1997 18:31
>
> Dear Ron -
>
>         Continuing the discussion about pd and its effects:   If people
were
> polled at random as to what they usually think about when not thinking
> about anything in particular  (when their brain [or mind] is simply
> idling), you would probably get a variety of stunned looks, some sheepish
> smiles, and many embarassed confessions . My guess would be that the top
> ranking replies would be money, sex, what to cook for supper, worrying
> about family members, worring about the future, and money, and sex.
>         If the poll were taken only of those of us with a chronic disease
the
> answers would probably be much the same, but the distribution of these
> answers might be quite different.  Right up there with money and sex
would
> be a worry about the future, financially, physically and emotionally.
> What will I become and who will take care of me?
>         Pd is a gift from the Giver-of-all-good- things, an unwelcome and
> unpleasant gift to be sure, but a gift nonetheless.   We pwp's are
> privileged above others.  We share our front row seats in the theater of
> the future with those with muscular dystrophy, diabetes, Lou Gehrig' s
> disease, and other less well known  conditions.  Alzheimers patients are
> excluded; they appear to lose conscious contact with reality.
>         We pwp have a condition which affords us a delicious conscious
descent
> into the realm of total physical incapacity.   The mills of the Gods
grind
> exceeding low but exceeding fine.  Pd gives a new dimension to the
meaning
> of the word relentless.
>         Furthermore our pd does not affect  our cognitive abilities.  Pd
is a
> surgeon with a very sharp scapel operating on an unanesthized patient.
We
>  are awake on the operating table and painfully conscious of every cut as
> one-by-one the surgeon removes our ability to write, to walk, to sleep,
to
> sit still, to engage in the ordnary bits and pieces of life and on and
on.
>
>         We are like Poe's protagonist victims, Fortunatos watching in
disbelief
> as the last bricks are cemented in place entombing him forever.
>         One reason I think of my pd as a gift is that it relentlessly
holds a
> mirror in front of may face and forces me to look into it.  It is the
> mirror of self awareness, the mirror of truth, the mirror that shows me
as
> I really am, not as I might like to think of or imagine myself to be.
> Denial is for beginners and has no place here.  The emotional skills
> needed to live gracefully with pd are purchased at great price, the price
> of self-knowledge.  They must be relearned daily, and every day I am less
> than perfect, and every day I stumble where once I went smoothly.
>         Acommodation without surrender is easy to say, but difficult to
practice.
>
> [Reading that over I see how poorly I have expressed myself, but I will
> let it stand.. ]
>
> George Andes
> 64/15