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Her Illness Opens New Paths to Life by Terry Bibo Joan Blessington Snyder takes her own incurable, debilitating, progressive neurological disease and makes it almost ... fun. In 10 years of living with Parkinson's disease, Joan has watched her physical faculties crumble and endured two surgeries. "My world is my children asking 'Why?' and 'Will I get it too?' and my husband's unfailing love and the anguish in his eyes as I spin out of balance and fall - this time needing only seven stitches to close the wound", she writes. It doesn't sound like fun at all, but when she focuses her limited energy, things happen. Parties, for example. She has established Internet friendships, held two Parkinson's Awareness days, become a board member and the creative communications director for the Parkinson's Alliance and helped publish a book. She kicked off her 50th year with a launch for that book - "Voices from the Parking Lot" - in New York City. (Met a friend of a friend on the way to the Statue of Liberty too.) Joan says she never aspired to become "the poster child for Parkinson's disease". Yet it seems she has a gift, of the turning lemons-into-lemonade variety, perhaps because she sees the glass as always half full.The latest example is the quirky group assembled for dinner at Chillicothe's Pearce Community Center on Thursday. At first glance, this is a jumbled jigsaw puzzle of family and friends, journalists and golf pros, politicos and music promoters. To her right sits a pair of PhDs from the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria. To her left is Carol Walton, the executive director of the Parkinson's Alliance in Princeton, New Jersey. It takes the hostess to put all these pieces into place and see the whole picture. "I can't tell you how good it feels to know that we're going to make Parkinson's disease a thing of the past", Joan says. Her voice is fluttery, thanks to the second surgery, but her words are firm. And the more people talk, the more they see the possibilities. Walton is here to collaborate on a fund-raiser, a big one. The duo already has approached some local corporations for help with underwriting, got a date on May 26 set up for a golf outing and had an offer for help with food and drinks. They think they can raise between $35,000 and $100,000. Every dollar will be matched and used to fund research. That's why Joan has assembled what she calls "her dream team". "The definition of a dream team is people who show up and work and do what they say they're going to do", Walton says. "It isn't any more complicated than that." It's a tempting leverage, two for one, designed to find a cure for Parkinson's disease in the least possible time. It's even more tempting when you learn there is an outside possibility some of that research could be done here. Just this afternoon, Joan and Walton met with Phillip Jobe and Rick Weber of the U of I College of Medicine at Peoria. "What we're talking about is research that is taking place in Peoria, Ill. - and we can help fund this", Jobe says. "What these two gentlemen have told me makes my heart sing", Joan says tearily. "Because it gives me hope." She wants a cure. She wants it now. Like Martin Tuchman, whose Tuchman Foundation matches the money because his wife has almost no options left, she has no time to waste. "One of the reasons this is so important to me is because I don't know how many more years I've got in me. I'd like to do this one with a bang, not a whimper." The Journal Star, Peoria, Illinois, USA Terry Bibo is a columnist for the Journal Star. Write her at 1 News Plaza, Peoria, Illinois, 61643, or call (800) 225 5757, Ext.3189, or ssend e-mail to [log in to unmask] janet paterson, an akinetic rigid subtype parkie 53 now /44 dx cd / 43 onset cd /41 dx pd / 37 onset pd TEL: 613 256 8340 URL: http://www.geocities.com/janet313/ EMAIL: [log in to unmask] SMAIL: POBox 171 Almonte Ontario K0A 1A0 Canada