While certainly all those PD "whats, hows, and wherefore's" that have been brought up are very important, ya've all forgotten one VERY serious issue in the Parkies Visit Oprah," thinggee that Stan's whipping up. Now I'd EXPECT Stan not to think of this issue, 'cause... well.... after all, he's a MALE. But come ON... where are all our lovely ladies? Let's hear it, wimmins! <grin> WHAT are you going to WEAR when we make it to the big time on Oprah??? Oh oh.... I can see the look of panic on all your faces right now! You're each doing a mental "closet inventory," right? NOT TO WORRY! Here's the deal. I've managed (DON'T ASK ME HOW) to get ahold of several of our PD List fellas credit cards WHICH of course I'm going to share with all our Oprah-bound PD women, and we'll just all head off to the mall!! (WHEW!! Problem solved!) Hmmm.... (thinking).... remind me not to ever logon at 3:30 a.m when I've been putting in an all-niter. OTHER folks here on our PD List wax poetical at this hour. And.... as you can see... I seem to rise to new heights of whimsy. Barb Mallut "Lil_Honey" on the PD Chat [log in to unmask] ---------- From: Parkinson's Information Exchange on behalf of Kenora Fluerette Leonard Sent: Sunday, February 16, 1997 12:14 PM To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN Subject: Re: "THE PARKIE STORY" Hello folks OPRAH AND THE PARKIE STORY This is fun, this is amusing, this is unloading. Later we will become serious, and we will have to deal with reality. I have these visions of how things will run. Oprah will want to know more than the disease of Parkinson - she will want to know why we contracted PD. Who will be able to answer this one? No cure you say but causes? Assumedly PD is never the same with all sufferers so why did we get it. On the List I hear very little about causes. One said it had to do with flying and anxiety of flight while another said it was from stress. Should we not prepare to answer this question soon. Why is the disease being diagnosed in the younger population where drugs were more READIBLY accessible than in the age of our parents? Are we ready to answer this? Did society dictate our disease? Should women have stayed at home to raise the kids while the men worked? Are women unable to take the stress of both working and raising the kids? But you say, "Women had to find jobs otherwise the mortgage was not getting paid anymore with the increases in house payments - were men forced to work at two, and sometimes three, to make ends meet? Did this CAUSE my loss of dopamine - damn it, I want my dopamine back... (remember I went back to school at 44 to get a degree in History and Education - I am a teacher). In hindsight, perhaps I should have stayed home. It's ok to organize this trip to Chicago but this has been done before; Phil Donahue, 60 Minutes, CBS news and other news network, and still not that many remunerative rewards were dished out to us for research. I like the term INVISIBLE here. In my family no one is overly worried - what's more they say that I don't have PD because it does not run in our family - brutal eh! I only mean to help - I only want a cure for this in order to end the ghastly suffering I read in my Email three times a day. Fleurette At 02:25 PM 2/16/97 -0500, you wrote: >Barb: > >WHOA! Wait a feckless minute! You mean my involvement in this epic movie will >only be as screenwriter? And I have to share credit with someone else? > >Acually, I had envisioned Tom Cruise playing me. After all, he starred in >"Days of Thunder." He has experience crashing cars into other objects. > >Stan >