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Dear list members, Let's go back in time "a little" to most of you, but a long time to me. I am talking about eight years and eight months. I was so psychologically sick that I felt that I had to die to escape the pain. Little did I know that what God had in store for me was, in a lot of ways, much worse than death. I climbed in my car pulled her into the garage and shut the door behind me. The next thing I remember, I was lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by family and friends. The nurse asked me to wiggle my toes. I did so with relative ease. I was taken to have an MRI scan done on my brain. It was then that it was discovered that I had incurred bi-lateral lesions to the globus pallidus. Pseudo-Parkinsonism is what I heard it called. My movements were slow, I could not swallow anything but clear liquid. I had absolutely no balance, I had severe dystonia in my left extremeties, and last but not least, I could not speak a word. The well meaning, but naive pysiatrist put me on Sinemet right away. I came home in a couple of months, was gradually weaned off the sinemet, and as time has gone on, minus a couple of graves that I have dug for myself, am feeling better. Not "MUCH" better, just better. Imagine, if you will, what it would be like to wake up tomorrow morning with "SEVERE" Parkinson's disease. That is what I did. However, it was like surviving a bad car accident...except the part of my brain that was injured by the CO is so deep withing the brain, you couldn't injure it by blunt force without killing most of the rest of the brain. I am supposed to be getting better, not worse, as my brain "Evidently" is "Compensating" for the functions that were lost. I say "Evidently" because, living with this condition day in and day out makes it sort of hard to notice any progress. I am like you, in that I am in search of a cure for this dreadful illness. Of course the "Cure" for me will not be the same as for you. I feel for all of you out there in cyber-parkie space, who must just wait and watch intently as the government gives so little attention to this misunderstood and sometimes blatently unrecognized disease. As your limbs get stiffer, and as your movements get slower. I feel for you, because I understand how you feel. I can not however feel your fear. One friend I've made here is twenty-eight years old! I try to put myself in her shoes, I can't even get one toe in, because she is living with the fear of what growing old will be like for her. I sometimes ask myself, do I belong on this list. The answer is a resounding yes. Because I feel or have felt what a lot of you are going to feel, UNLESS A CURE IS FOUND. Jacob Drollinger (26, '88)