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i have had an exhilirating day today. i thought that it would be quite the opposit. you see, several weeks ago, my favorite Catholic priest in the world wrote me an email, which he called me his parkinson's care partner. i thought at first that this some kind of cruel joke that Father was playing on me but then i began to realize hat nobody would joke about this. so later on that day, he called me and we spoke of his dxes. and the future and how we would face whatever it was that lay before us with the helpof our faith. he was going to the neuro on the tuesday before Christmas to get his doctor's diagnosis of pd validated by a neuro and he was really looking forward to seeing this new doc to find out just what it was that he had and to ask him some of the million questions that any newbie has, on that tuesday afternoon, he called me and was very discouraged. the neuro had spent all of 10 minutes with Father, told him that he was too young to get pd and after all, he admitted that he wasn't any good at detecting parkinson's disease anyway. why does this sound so familiar to me-i guess that it is because i hear this same thing from all over the country. inept doctors with no awareness of the effects of their diagnosis or the burden this becomes on the entire family. i immediatly emailed my friend and movement disorder specialist, Dr. Marc Katchen and set up an appointment for today. Father and Dr, allowed me in the room for the exam and as soon as Father came in (i hadn't seen him for over 2 years), i could tell the difference. Father was shaking from the inside out and even though his sense of humor was undisturbed, i could tell that he was afraid that this would jeopardize his ability to say daily Mass and to run the five parishes that he is the pastor for. i listened to him tell of his symptoms and i was astonished at his progression in two short years. Dr. Katchen asked me for my imput and i had to say that i hated to admit it but if it quacked like pd and it looked like pd, then it was probably pd. but Dr. Katchen had a different idea: he said that Father's tremors were too rapid for pd and that his tremors were all when he worked against gravity (ie: his spoon shakes on the way up to his mouth rather than when he stops and tries to put the food into his mouth. he said that pd is more of a resting tremor. anyway, Dr. Katchen's diagnoisis was Essential Tremor which can be controlled by drugs, isn't progressive and doesn't lead to dementia. we were all overjoyed. _now for the good part._ we went to lunch and Father asked me what i thought about embryonic stem cell research. boy, i was thinking that might come up but not to be put on the spot so suddenly. all of my thoughts drained out of the bottom of my feet and i almost even considered lying to a priest!! but somehow, i gathered my wits and told the entire table about my experience with stem cells and how i felt that i was a pro-life Catholic who believed in embryonic stem cell research. when i was finished, i sat ready to take the heat for all that i had just finished speaking about. nobody said a word and then Father said, " joan, you are exactly right." he went on to explain that conception does not occur when the egg is fertilized by the sperm, but that the true moment of conception occurs when the fertilized egg implants itself into the wall of the uterus and thereby becomes a viable , living thing. i was so astonished by the sense that this made that i nearly fell into my soup. he said that conception brought about in a beaker or a test tube with no chance of ever being brought to term inside a woman's womb is not conception. he said that my fight for enbryonic stem cell research was a good and worthy battle. Amen -- Joan Blessington Snyder 54/14 [log in to unmask] http://www.pwnkle.com/jes/jes_web/index.htm “Hang tough……..no way through it but to do it.” Chris in the Morning Northern Exposure ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn