Jeanette.......well done......you've expressed your feelings  eloquently and
I agree .........if we look around, we've all got a lot to be thankful
for...................Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone.....Joan Hartman
----- Original Message -----
From: Leo Fuhr <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 1999 7:36 AM
Subject: Fw: Thanksgiving 1999 and hope for the future


> ----------
> From: Leo Fuhr <[log in to unmask]>
> To: Linda J Herman <[log in to unmask]>; Barbara Blake-Krebs
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Cc: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Thanksgiving 1999 and hope for the future
> Date: Tuesday, November 23, 1999 9:26 AM
>
> As I sit at my computer this morning, I am amazed at the blessings in my
> life.  After weeks of dry weather, the sky has opened and rain is coming
> down and restoring the soil with moisture.  I feel like the dry earth must
> feel when the rain washes down.  I am showered with encouragement from my
> friends who, like me, struggle to find the silver lining to the cloud of
> Parkinson's disease.
>
> This same month, two years earlier, when I heard my neurologist tell me,
> "You may have Parkinson's disease, although at 47, you're too young.", I
> felt like I had just been punched in the stomach. I'd never known anyone
> with Parkinson's disease and as the doctor talked to me and my husband
> about the medication he was prescribing, the probable 15-20 good years
most
> people with Parkinson's enjoy, the numerous new surgical interventions
> being tried........I only half heard his words.  I was relieved the MRI,
> blood tests, etc. ruled out stroke, tumor or other deadly diagnoses, but
> "Why did I have Parkinson's disease?"
>
> Two years later in November 1999 I still have no definate answer to the
> question,  "Why do I have Parkinson's?"  What I know about Parkinson's has
> grown ten fold.  I have met people with Parkinson's.  People my parents'
> age or in their 50's have been at the support group I attend.  People my
> own age have been "introduced" via the PIEN(Parkinson's Information
> Exchange Network) and I have "met" more young onset Parkinson's through
> reading their stories in national magazines, especially since the PEOPLE
> magazine article interviewing Michael J. Fox, who is even younger than me
> and has had the disease since age 30.  All of us have things in common.
>
> What do we have in common?  We have been diagnosed with a chronic,
> incurable brain disease.  We are not sure what or how this disease will
> effect us, our families, our communities.  But one thing each of us must
> have in order to keep getting up and facing each day is the support of
> others and the hope that the future holds promise of
> treatment/cause/prevention/cure of Parkinson's.
>
> Just today, 11/23/99 one of the pwp(people with Parkinson's) that posts
> messages to PIEN sent information about the decade transplant survival of
> implanted cells in the brain of a pwp.  Not only has the pwp seen
> improvement in his disease symptoms, but also new imaging mapping of the
> brain of the pwp compared to brains of control people shows that the
> transplanted cells of ten years ago are thriving and surviving.  Now talk
> about your hopes and your improvement and your successful
> surgery.........WOW.......this is great news for pwp and for research in
> brain disease!
>
> When I sit down with family this Thanksgiving 1999, I am thankful for the
> blessings that shower down on me like the rain falls on the parched
ground.
>  I want to soak up the blessings of love, health, prosperity, well being
> and that all important blessing of HOPE.  For without hope, my life and
> yours would not be worth anything.
>
> Wishing you and yours a HAPPY THANKSGIVING filled with hope and blessings.
>
> Jeanette Fuhr:)
>