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George, THANKS for your wonderful e-mail I first noticed today. Best wishes Sonia Nielsen Denmark NEVER GIVE UP ---------- > Fra: George Andes <[log in to unmask]> > Til: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN <[log in to unmask]> > Emne: Re(2): I'm new > Dato: 25. december 1997 18:31 > > Dear Ron - > > Continuing the discussion about pd and its effects: If people were > polled at random as to what they usually think about when not thinking > about anything in particular (when their brain [or mind] is simply > idling), you would probably get a variety of stunned looks, some sheepish > smiles, and many embarassed confessions . My guess would be that the top > ranking replies would be money, sex, what to cook for supper, worrying > about family members, worring about the future, and money, and sex. > If the poll were taken only of those of us with a chronic disease the > answers would probably be much the same, but the distribution of these > answers might be quite different. Right up there with money and sex would > be a worry about the future, financially, physically and emotionally. > What will I become and who will take care of me? > Pd is a gift from the Giver-of-all-good- things, an unwelcome and > unpleasant gift to be sure, but a gift nonetheless. We pwp's are > privileged above others. We share our front row seats in the theater of > the future with those with muscular dystrophy, diabetes, Lou Gehrig' s > disease, and other less well known conditions. Alzheimers patients are > excluded; they appear to lose conscious contact with reality. > We pwp have a condition which affords us a delicious conscious descent > into the realm of total physical incapacity. The mills of the Gods grind > exceeding low but exceeding fine. Pd gives a new dimension to the meaning > of the word relentless. > Furthermore our pd does not affect our cognitive abilities. Pd is a > surgeon with a very sharp scapel operating on an unanesthized patient. We > are awake on the operating table and painfully conscious of every cut as > one-by-one the surgeon removes our ability to write, to walk, to sleep, to > sit still, to engage in the ordnary bits and pieces of life and on and on. > > We are like Poe's protagonist victims, Fortunatos watching in disbelief > as the last bricks are cemented in place entombing him forever. > One reason I think of my pd as a gift is that it relentlessly holds a > mirror in front of may face and forces me to look into it. It is the > mirror of self awareness, the mirror of truth, the mirror that shows me as > I really am, not as I might like to think of or imagine myself to be. > Denial is for beginners and has no place here. The emotional skills > needed to live gracefully with pd are purchased at great price, the price > of self-knowledge. They must be relearned daily, and every day I am less > than perfect, and every day I stumble where once I went smoothly. > Acommodation without surrender is easy to say, but difficult to practice. > > [Reading that over I see how poorly I have expressed myself, but I will > let it stand.. ] > > George Andes > 64/15