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Hi Edie and friends, How great it would be if Michael will get involved--he already IS anyway- another Brave soul to "come out of the closet" - not that he has any choice in the matter... I think that Michael was in a very unanticipated off-period on the Rosie O'Donnell show about five months ago...his interview with her was going just great-he was so charming and so funny and so friendly--BUT-- He seemed forced-he seemed nervous--I felt that Michael may have been plagued by the "what happens if my medications wear off, all of a sudden, ON-camera?" feeling. I have had to deal with that many times while performing on-stage with my Men's Chorus-there are a thousand issues-and a million tricks to try. Just as the show's Michael J. Fox segment ended, he was STUCK in the studio armchair. It was deep and plush. It seemed like he tried to push himself up, and fell backwards into the chair, and had to try a second time to stand up. I saw this so clearly as a typical PD symptom-- Mercifully, the segment cut away immediately to a commercial break. I felt like, if he has an off-period so bad that he can't get out of a chair, on camera, then, let's TALK about this, let's not hide it, let's make sure people know. On the other hand, there are times when we mask our symptoms and don't talk about them. I had an appproaching off-period myself, during my Christmas concert, while I was holding a battery-powered electric candlestick, and I started shaking. Fortunately, from the audience perspective, even in the front row, it looked like the candle was "flickering." I was getting that "Oh NO!, not NOW! " feeling-and believe me, it couldn't have been calculated to be more scary. I also was losing my voice volume, and the choreographer had me out front by the piano, at that point in our concert. I had to switch places in the dark with another man in the bass section, so that I could hide the end-of-dose tremors from the front rows of the audience. Eventually, I discovered that people were so excited to see me on stage-since I am something like a local celebrity when PD is mentioned---that I had only added to my reputation by this quick switch. Just being there moved so many people. The stage producer and the personal care attendant on-duty(there must be somebody there for me, back-stage) and I are always making dress rehearsal changes to fine-tune previous arrangements, especially, with the somewhat unpredictable responses I have to PD meds. Despite all this, I feel so good when I come off the stage after singing, that I can't give it up. The next giant step is what to do about two different opinions that I can't ignore -- both of which point towards brain surgery for me in the not-to-distant future, even though I am resolutely holidng out for research to end the need for surgery. Ivan On Tue, 11 May 1999 10:12:37 EDT "Edie Luther." <[log in to unmask]> writes: >Michael J. Fox was on Regis and Kathy Lee show. He appeared nervous, >but I >think he was experiencing dyskenisia. He said he communicates with >the >listserve as well as the parkinson's chat rooms. He also intimated >that he >was going to get >involved with the parkinson's movement soon. I thought it was a >fairly good >interview. >Edie ^^^^^^ WARM GREETINGS FROM ^^^^^^^^^^^^ :-) Ivan Suzman 49/39/36 [log in to unmask] :-) Portland, Maine land of lighthouses 66 deg. F :-) ********************************************************************