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At 23:03 1999/08/15 -0400, you wrote: >As someone with a spouse in stage 2 with a tremor on one side being >pretty well controlled with 2-/1/2 sinemet 25/100 per day, I found this >article totally depressing. Is this what we have to look forward to? > >Rayna >[log in to unmask] > >>In an interview earlier this year, Ms. Samuelson spoke eloquently of >>her own frightening future: "I have watched fellow advocates and >>friends, people I loved, die the living death which is end-stage >>Parkinson's, where you are a prisoner of your body, unable to >>participate in the world, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to >>swallow." another example of the tendency of the 'news media' to sensationalize and catastrophize in order to gain attention [and thus sales, i presume] even the title of the article is contradicted by the content [reno does not discuss her pd, she leaves that to her doctor] samuelson is quoted [i assume accurately] above in describing 'end stage' parkinson's -- as we know it to date -- i find the lead-in sentence blatantly fear-and-emotion-mongeringish "she spoke eloquently of her own frightening future" i'd like to think that joan samuelson's version of this would be substantially different from my point of view it speaks reams of: 1. fortune telling: last time i looked no-one of us can foretell the future, period we have today - that's it we don't know if we will be hit by a truck tomorrow we don't knonw if we will succumb to a tornado next year we don't know if we will get devoured by flesh-eating bacteria next decade 2. ignorance of the current state of pd affairs: last time i looked the surgical and pharmaceutical advances in pd of the past decade have never seen the like in all of human history on this planet the word 'cure' is now being spoken by sane people 3. if joan was so danged "eloquent" and definite about her future why do you think she hasn't kicked the bucket yet? she's one smart cookie janet janet paterson 52 now / 41 dx / 37 onset snail-mail: PO Box 171 Almonte Ontario K0A 1A0 Canada website: a new voice <http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Village/6263/> e-mail: <[log in to unmask]>