Earlier tonite I happened upon a blog site that you might find of interest, http://www.dooce.com/. This is a woman, a former morman, now married, a mother and living in Salt Lake City, who also turned away from the church. She is quite outspoken, but you might find her ruminations of some interest. I don’t know if you would have anything to say to each other, but what little I read was, at least entertaining.

(Sorry about the link thingy. I still haven’t mastered that bit of bloggery.)

TLS

I am so sorry to hear that about your dad. Let me know if you need anything — seriously. You wrote a beautiful posting.

Sadie

It sounds devestating like all degenerative illnesses are. I’m glad he has your mom to help him through this, and I’m glad your mom has you. It seems it will take a family effort of love and support for all.

You forgot - drink a lot of water, take two of these and call me in the morning.

TLS

Isn’t that a strange statement of our culture, that we expect cancer? When most cancer is due to the toxic lifestyle and industry of of culture… I know it gets pawned off as we are living longer.. but thats a smoke job… we get cancer and so many of us get cancer, since this lifestyle, and economy is toxic to our health.

And it goes beyond that I suspect 80% of these dread dieases are based upon toxic lifestyles.

We are a reflection of our lifestyle so I find it strange people don’t flip this around and create a lifestyle healthy based upon ourselves. Curing the dieases is one angle, but the real hope, the real difference will only happen once our culture matures in the way it lives in harmony (lack there of) with the enviroment and itself.

I hope your father does ok with the Parkinsons. Best sincere wishes for you and your family.

Parkinsons Disease has received some needed exposure through the efforts of Michael J. Fox and Muhammed Ali over the last several years. But, as you say, it still does not carry the recognition that cancer and heart disease do. There are, of course, many other diseases and conditions that get little, if any, public airing.

Numbers are important. Generally, as the cost of developing new drugs and other treatments are so huge, most of the pharmeceutical companies are not willing to spend the time and effort working on cures for low profile ailments. Some such research is being done through various universities - often in conjunction with one or more of the drug companies.

One of my wife’s uncles succumed to ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease back in the 90s. Joan had 9 uncles and 1 aunt (imagine being the only girl amongst 9 Italian brothers.) Mike, the ALS victim, was the first to go. Like Parkinsons, ALS robs sufferers of muscular control. Its effects are devastating and almost always fatal. It took Uncle Mike in about 18 months. One of the few people I know of to survive at length while being afflicted with ALS is Stephen Hawking. Nevertheless, it is obvious that it has taken its toll on him physically.

Since then Joan has lost both of her parents and all but 3 of her uncles. Two were victims of Alzheimers. Her father had a series of strokes. The others all succummed to a variety of heart ailments.

We are all too painfully aware that something is going to get us all, eventually. What is so frustrating is how so often we see announcements about some new advances in drugs and treatments for our various maladies, but utlimately, they are rarely heard from again. All too often, the results turn out to be far less effective than hoped.

I do believe that the most promissing area of research for cures lay in genetics. Also, if it weren’t for the idiot Bush and the right wing religious crazies, we could be seeing some results from stem cell research.

Whether any of the current work will succeed in time to help any of us is up for grabs. But, we must, nevertheless, maintain hope and support the efforts of the very scientists that we talk about in these blogs.

TLS

I’m so sorry to hear of your dads stuggles, I hope they find a cure someday.