The Proposed PD Village and Vinegar Water
Do you see a link between the two ? If you have been following your recent
post you may!
As this is my first letter to PARKINSN however, I understand that it is
custom to briefly introduce oneself. I am 68 years old and a retired
commercial man having specialised in the export business. Amongst other
places, I have spent more than a third of my working life in Switzerland only
returning to live in Scotland three years ago. I am married to a Swiss lady.
The initial PD diagnosis was made in 1987 and this led to an early
retirement in 1991. I have therefore, first hand experience of "our problem"
and the drastic impact it has on our lives.
I am also new to Internet having hesitated to jump in for over several years
because I could neither find any suitable courses to attend or
"understandable" books to read. Also, without some special stimulus, I did
not think that the expense was justified.
Two events drastically changed this! Firstly, David Langridge wrote a quite
outstanding and stimulating article on "Parkinson's and the Internet "- "A
Personal View" in the June issue of the British Parkinson's Disease Society
Bulletin and secondly, my interest coincided with increasing activity on the
British market by AOL (America On Line). With this 'Access Provider, at last
I found a source from where I could download understandable and relevant
learning texts backed by an efficient friendly welcome and a highly
commendable and broadly based infrastructure of technical "help"contacts and
resources.
I mention this personal "growth" and development within the context of
David's "PD Village" as this is my experience of becoming acquainted and
entering a "new world" coupled with the wonderful opportunity to come out of
one's own PD shell just a little bit.
A word here therefore to all those well intentioned and sympathetic sons and
daughters of "elderly parents" who write to PARKINSN on their behalf. If
David and I can start out on the NET as old age pensioners of 68, then
there is nothing to prevent others from doing the same! Of course, it
means hard work to learn and to try to maximise the benefits from one's
labours - it calls for more effort than pressing a TV button! Surely
however, it is well worth while - especially as one has to face up to the
possibility that at some time during our PD careers, we may not always be
able to write. The computer, as word processor, gives one the chance of
bringing out a finished letter that the reader in no way can tell whether
the author has typed it out at 60 or 6 words per minute!
And then Jacob wrote the other day and poured out his heart out to the
List.. Which one of us was not touched to the core! We have all been
through it.... and who has not shed a tear in the quietness and loneliness
of his or her own room? Here again, this is what a village is all about.
Villagers share a similar background, experiences and environment - we are
bound by our PD emotions and no-one who is not a sufferer oneself, can
really know what it feels like to be in a Parkinson shoe.. How wonderful it
is to find that a body such as PARKINSN already exists and to where Jacob and
many others like him can turn and find some understanding. It was a pleasure
to read a few days later that Jacob found a second wind!
The right mental condition is so important to members of a PD village.
Depressive thoughts are only too close a hand. One way is to combat this is
to do something! I have told you what has happened to me after reading
David's article on Internet. Subsequently, we have had a very pleasant and
useful exchange of EMails - indeed it was to David that I sent my first!
My second E-mail was to Barbara Patterson in Toronto! Indeed, I see we
have another Paterson in Bermuda!! I read too, that in the List an
expression of electronic friendship is used. I would hope, health permitting,
that David and I may meet one day. Is this too, not a function of a village
whose inhabitants value each other for what they are and not for what they
are materially worth or, worse still, think what they are worth!
Let me return to the question of mental attitude for a moment. Firstly, self
pity is out! Not even one's closest partner, friend or carer should be made
to suffer over a longish time from one's own self pity. Of course, one
cannot prevent having a moan every now and then....but not too often"! Many
many years ago I read a book by Dale Carnegie called "How to Stop Worrying
and Start Living". There was a couplet somewhere in this book that I have
never forgotten and which helped me a lot during a particularly difficult
period of my life. It ran like this:-
"Two men looked out from prison bars
One saw mud, the other stars"
And where you may ask does the "Vinegar water" come in"?
The vinegar water is, to me, very relevant! When Margaret Tuchman and Vicki
Pelton mentioned the vinegar water, I thought what a good idea ! Perhaps it
might help my nocturnally aching toes, legs, back and neck , making the
time in bed no longer a thing to look forward to. I did not have the
confidence to put my question to PARKINSN @ LISTSERVE but wrote to Vicki
Pelton. Like the diplomat I once was, or was supposed to have been!, Vicki
responded with the supreme tact of the phrase, "You might send an open
message to the List and get their opinions on it?". This was written on
the 24th August, Since then, we have had David's major entry on the PD
Village - my question, by the way, was ".... how many times should one take
the vinegar water each day"? . The answer is, "the lady took it whenever she
has leg cramps"!. This is the stuff of "pure village gossip" There could be
hundreds and hundreds of such interesting and amusing "tales" to be told and
exchanged.
The infrastructure for our PD village already exists thanks to the efforts of
very many others who have made both the Net and the List possible. A going
concern has been handed over to us! Let us use this facility to help the
cause both of the individual PD sufferer and to encourage its use as a
lively and useful platform for information exchange. Also, as already is
the case, it should be used as a recognised prime list to inform the general
public about all matters that may have an influence on their or their carers'
lives; it should be a dependable link to and from opinion makers, the
medical profession and indeed as is the case in the USA at the moment, the
List should be a communications channel open to PD's to approach
legislators, congress men and women and their counterparts world wide.
Perhaps, like the David Langridge's article that I referred to earlier, a
word or two that I have written may strike a chord somewhere and with
someone! If so, I shall be content and more than well rewarded for the
privilege of being able to reach such a wide audience of fellow PD villagers.
"God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference."
Rae Paterson : ( [log in to unmask])
