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Dear listmembers, A recent thread on the list has dealt with the reaction of many of us in the middle stages of PD, to being reminded of the realities of end stage PD. It is a hard thing to do, living with Parkinson's Disease in your life. Whether PWP or CG we survive by devising techniques by which we manage the disease and, probably more importantly, ourselves and our attitudes to PD. It has often been said that no two people experince PD in exactly the same way. It is equaly true that no two people will deal wth it in the same way. There is one glaring exception to this 'rule'. In my experience those of us who have learnt to take "one day at a time", seem to be the most succesful at maintaining some quality in our lives. Very few of us have this attitude at diagnoses. Most of us seem to enter the grief cycle, experiencing varying degrees of denial and anger, before finally accepting our new status. This is the point at which the great divide occurs. Some of us, overwhelmed by the problems they are already facing, and shocked and terrified by their vision of the possible future, become the wounded in this war of attrition in which we are all unwilling draftees. The rest of us, faced with the same vision, and accutely concious of how small we are, choose to concentrate on the battle at hand. The grand stratagies that will win this war are beyond us as individuals. New drugs, new surgical techniques, new genetic information - these are what will win the war against PD. We individual footsoldiers approach the war piecemeal, one skirmish, one day at a time. It is our task to secure our own piece of the battle ground. Many of us will lose our individual battles before the war is won. We cannot let that fact distract us. That battle is for another day and requires a different type of courage. Dennis. ++++++++++++++++++++ Dennis Greene 47/10 [log in to unmask] ++++++++++++++++++++