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(29 Mar 97) Nursing Home Barbara, your message strikes a chord in all of us, and I suspect that we all, old or not so old, have thought hard about our long- term future. I hope these off-hand comments won't aggravate the pain that I would like to lessen, or be taken as inane preaching: - The experts don't say or write much about "end-stage" PD because, I think, most patients don't reach it. PD progresses so slowly that some other illness usually overtakes it. - You may take that slowness as a curse or a blessing. Sure, I'm sad about all the physical pleasures I've lost, but glad that PD, alone among all the other "incurable" diseases, permits me to enjoy some mental pleasures for how long? 5, 10, 20 years? Do I really hope to reach 95 with nothing worse than PD? - Sure, the prospect of prolonged helplessness is sad and scary; not just for myself but for others around me. I look on it as a test of courage. Maybe, when the time comes, I won't have it and will look for an easy way out. Until then, as someone said, play it as it lays. Joe J. R. Bruman (818) 789-3694 3527 Cody Road Sherman Oaks CA 91403