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On Wed, 22 Jan 1997, Fluerette wrote: > ... there are Parkinsonian in this town and they appear to > keep the disease to themselves. The revealing of it is still taboo in many > places (I think). I think so too. Until I knew I have PD I had never seen, much less met, anyone with it. (My grandmother had very bad tremors in both hands, but my memories of her are of someone old, not someone ill.) My only acquaintance with PD was via the customary 1-2 TV documentaries per year, which invariably depict PD as a disease of old age. When I was trying to stir some political action the other day to highlight the financial dilemma I find myself in faced with costs of medication (our govt whawcked a $40 patient contribution on Seligiline last Nov. just as I got my first prescription) and supplementation while not being able at the moment to earn a decent living, I began to have a vision (no, not a Selegiline-induced hallucinat8ion) of a mass of Ozzie Parkies deescending on parliament house in Canberra - holding a 'shake-in' - or 'shake-out' - in the lobby. Recent decades have seen all kinds of minority groups proudly 'outing' and I think it is time we did the same. Damned if i'm gonna hide in the cupboard. I think 'the world' - meaning the environment in some as yet unknown way - may have given us this. 'the world' - meaning the social world - needds to see it. Hope your group gets off to a good start, Fluerette. Beth Leslie