> 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 and all others
To think about what will happen in the last period of our lives can be
threatening for all people. In that respect we, PWPD's, are not different from
others. I have a few times been asked wether I had thought about the end phase
of PD and wether I could manage to accept this reality. The first time it
happened I did feel this question was wrong but didn't know immediately why and
didn't know what to say. After some time I knew what was wrong. The person who
said this acted as if she herself was immortal, as if she did not too knew she
had to die and death might come after a period of deterioration of body
functions. So another time this question came I said: "no, have you faced the
things that may happen at the end phase of your life"?
One important thing I have learned from having this disease is that we don't
know our psychic strength. I learned to know it not before I had to use it
facing a reality which before I had thought to be impossible to bear. In that
time I did believe things like that couldn't happen to me at all. I have
learned things like that can happen to me, but at the same time that those
things don't destroy all pleasure in life. That is why it makes sense not to
try to solve the problems of the future. When I read stories about PWPD's who
are totally incapicitated and have to go to nursing homes, I try to think that
now I can not understand things that maybe make it somehow acceptable in the
future, if it happens at all to me.
Ida Kamphuis (52\12)
Holland
