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Billy, Dennis and others,

I have always been as open as possible about my Parkinson's diagnosis - I
immediately told all my close colleagues at work, plus family and friends.

I've now stopped telling people, because I rather assume that almost everyone
knows.  But paradoxically, the problem I have now is not knowing who does NOT
know!  This is especially true at work, as I work for a large organisation,
and you can't keep on prefacing each meeting by saying "By the way, in case
you didn't know..."  It just gets too tedious and is probably unnecessary.

My experience in general is that bad news of this type travels like wildfire
around an organisation or a network of friends and family, so it's fairly
safe to assume that everyone who matters probably already knows.  I tested
this out twice today while visiting some colleagues in Scotland, whom I know
I had not told personally;  and Yes, the theory works, they'd known for quite
some time through mutual friends but just hadn't needed/wanted to raise it
specifically.

Has anyone out there any views on this, or any neat solutions?  Wearing a
discreet badge or tiepin would be a good non-verbal signal, and I know that a
neat tulip motif button-hole badge is available.  The trouble is that it's
not yet a universally recognised symbol.  Perhaps if we all started wearing
one, it would become recognised.  I think responding to a question "That's a
interesting badge you're wearing, what does it signify?" might be one of the
most effective and least dramatic ways of making our condition known.

Tim (42/1)
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