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HEY!! HEEEEY!!! (jumping up 'n down and waving arms in air) HEY - I volunteer for the photos of young and beautiful Parkies!! (liar, liar, pants on fire) Uhhhhh... OK.... well, how about just beautiful? Errrrrr.... (thinking)... OK.... OK..... so maybe just "attractively middle aged?" (grinning) Barb Mallut [log in to unmask] ---------- From: Parkinson's Information Exchange on behalf of Leo Fuhr Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 1998 12:21 PM To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN Subject: Sept 11 CBS-TV EXPOSURE FOR PD is a younger pwp best rep? Ivan Suzman said in part: > The second reason I am writing is to respond to Craig Mellinger's > concern, that perhaps I am too young and too physically well to be > representative. I fully share his concerns. In a nutshell, I figure, > ANYONE with PD who is not hiding it, who goes on TV, gives us another > small victory. We MUST learn the art of media coverage if we are ever to > be heard, however our community gains entry to the arena of TV, radio, > movies, magazines and newspapers. Ivan, I, too, appreciate Craig Mellinger's concern that healthy looking pwp may give an impression that Parkinson's does not disable. However, given our media's tendencies to only show the young and the beautiful, it may be that pwp have greater chance of getting noticed if some of us are shown as the younger adults we are. The other side is that the media likes to show the tragedy of young wasted lives, and Ivan, who's life is certainly not wasted, has had to give up his college professor career due to his struggle w/Parkinson's and hopefully the media spot covering his golfing will also note the long amt. of time it took him to compete and the complete exhaustion felt after what to most his age would just have been a nice afternoon of golf. > My philosophy is to keep doing as much as I possibly can, and > meanwhile, be open about having Parkinson's DIsease. This educates the > public. > > Why hide? And meanwhile, why not have a little fun if you can, while > promoting the cause-finding a cure for Parkinson's Disease, and making > our lives a little less miserable along the way. Like, Ivan, I'm determined to have some fun in my life and when the opportunity arises to mention the struggle that pd management can cause for me in my daily life and choices I make, I try to let others know that at the present drugs help me alot but I'm counting on research for a cause/cure for pd to allow me to live long and well. Then I ask, " Would you want to help by calling Senator Bond and Senator Ashcroft to support the Udall bill for parkinson's research? It's a very small piece of the total budget for NIH and in election year, congress is more open to tallying the number of calls and letters from constituents." > Jeanette Fuhr 47/10mo. <[log in to unmask]>