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Hello to all- things around here have been happening to fast & furiously that I can hardly take a breath. First-the collagen injections: Yesterday at 7am, I arrived at Peoria Day Surgery Center. to have skin cells harvested to grow my own collagen. While it was no walk in the park-it was certainly easier than giving birth to a 10 lb boy! Dr. Michael Vidas is certainly a skillful and caring man-but he stopped short of granting my wish to have liposuction while he was cutting! I had to settle for a "tummy tuck," as he harvested alot of skin to grow lots of collagen (he believes in the more is better philosophy!) and today I'm just a bit sore-w/24 staples in my tummy. This morning at 8:30 am, I met Dr. Vidas, Gina Morris (my tv buddy & her cameraman at Dr. Vidas' office. There she filmed alot of tape of me, my husband & the dr., got alot of questions asked and answered, and filmed them as they put a fiber-optic camera up my nose & down the back of my throat and they also filmed the video tape of my vocal chords behaving as they shouldn't. She got the dr.'s permission to come into the operating room w/ her cameraman to film the actual injections in 2-3 weeks. To her credit & that of her cameraman, neither of them got sick & both were fascinated by the process! I'd like to thank Margaret Tuchman for her list response to Rosemary-I printed it out and and gave it to Gina Morris so that she can have facts to go along w/ her stories. Now, to our plans for PD awareness day-Thanks once again to Margaret Tuchman & the Tuchman Foundation for PD research, we have been collecting moneys to underwrite our Art Exhibit. We are getting such a great response that I am revising my original budget & we are going to offer more to make this a real draw for Chillicothe & the surrounding areas; more of an EVENT! i received a phone call yesterday from Preston Jackson, an internationally known artists and jazz guitarist that he is available & happy to play music for our event. Just having his name on our advertisements will draw a large part of our target crowd.We are delighted to offer jazz because Claude Scott-the man & teacher whose battle w/ PD are the subject of this exhibit, loved jazz. One of my girlfriends in Peoria is a very skilled caterer and she has offered to cater the event w/ dips, veggies, cheeses, and finger sandwiches, for a nominal fee which I will be able to decide better after seeing the publicity as it goes out in the two weeks prior to the event. Tom Kelly & his wife are making up T-shirts that say "There's nothing wrong with me (my husband, my wife, my mom, my daughter etc.) that a cure for PD won't fix!" These will be available to be ordered. Another girlfriend is painting whites sweatshirts w/ a pink tulip on navy blue varsity letters that say PD. Yet another project is making navy blue ribbons looped like the aids red ribbon, yet tied with a silver bow to symbolize the older PWP & early onsetters united in our battle against this disease. As for publicity, the local newspaper will be doing two stories about the event plus run ads. The mayor will make a proclimation-Official PD Awareness Day at the next city council meeting so that will make all the area newspapers. the Peoria Paper will be doing a story on their things to Go & Do page. Tom Kelly, Jane Scott & I will be interviewed in the studio of Gina's TV station on the Saturday before the show. This is what we have for now; I will send further updates as events warrant! Thanks for your continuing prayers for our success! -- Joan E. Snyder (47-8-10) <[log in to unmask]> "In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer" Albert Camus http://www.newcountry.nu/pd/members/snyder/page1.htm