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---------- From: Leo Fuhr <[log in to unmask]> To: Linda J Herman <[log in to unmask]>; Barbara Blake-Krebs <[log in to unmask]> Cc: [log in to unmask] Subject: Thanksgiving 1999 and hope for the future Date: Tuesday, November 23, 1999 9:26 AM As I sit at my computer this morning, I am amazed at the blessings in my life. After weeks of dry weather, the sky has opened and rain is coming down and restoring the soil with moisture. I feel like the dry earth must feel when the rain washes down. I am showered with encouragement from my friends who, like me, struggle to find the silver lining to the cloud of Parkinson's disease. This same month, two years earlier, when I heard my neurologist tell me, "You may have Parkinson's disease, although at 47, you're too young.", I felt like I had just been punched in the stomach. I'd never known anyone with Parkinson's disease and as the doctor talked to me and my husband about the medication he was prescribing, the probable 15-20 good years most people with Parkinson's enjoy, the numerous new surgical interventions being tried........I only half heard his words. I was relieved the MRI, blood tests, etc. ruled out stroke, tumor or other deadly diagnoses, but "Why did I have Parkinson's disease?" Two years later in November 1999 I still have no definate answer to the question, "Why do I have Parkinson's?" What I know about Parkinson's has grown ten fold. I have met people with Parkinson's. People my parents' age or in their 50's have been at the support group I attend. People my own age have been "introduced" via the PIEN(Parkinson's Information Exchange Network) and I have "met" more young onset Parkinson's through reading their stories in national magazines, especially since the PEOPLE magazine article interviewing Michael J. Fox, who is even younger than me and has had the disease since age 30. All of us have things in common. What do we have in common? We have been diagnosed with a chronic, incurable brain disease. We are not sure what or how this disease will effect us, our families, our communities. But one thing each of us must have in order to keep getting up and facing each day is the support of others and the hope that the future holds promise of treatment/cause/prevention/cure of Parkinson's. Just today, 11/23/99 one of the pwp(people with Parkinson's) that posts messages to PIEN sent information about the decade transplant survival of implanted cells in the brain of a pwp. Not only has the pwp seen improvement in his disease symptoms, but also new imaging mapping of the brain of the pwp compared to brains of control people shows that the transplanted cells of ten years ago are thriving and surviving. Now talk about your hopes and your improvement and your successful surgery.........WOW.......this is great news for pwp and for research in brain disease! When I sit down with family this Thanksgiving 1999, I am thankful for the blessings that shower down on me like the rain falls on the parched ground. I want to soak up the blessings of love, health, prosperity, well being and that all important blessing of HOPE. For without hope, my life and yours would not be worth anything. Wishing you and yours a HAPPY THANKSGIVING filled with hope and blessings. Jeanette Fuhr:)