Old Hippies Walking

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When you travel to the Parkinson's Unity Walk in New York City this is one of the things you will find to mark your day with pride. At the famous Tavern on the Green stands a huge topiary of an elephant surely to bring good luck to all who pass him by.  It also means other things. The first year I walked, I turned to Tom and said, "I made it" and he said, "Nope, Poke you have another mile to go." I grabbed his wheelchair and we were off as fast as I could go before I ran out of steam.  Last year it was over ninety and people were dropping from heat exhaustion. When I saw them at one mile I knew I was done. This year I will be the wise walker and take it slow and easy .Both my daughters are going with me and I would like to make the finish line, again. My tickets are bought, as I said and I am once again making my plans for glorious New York City. Team Patientslikeme .is gaining members everyday as is our donations.  You would never know from the chatter between us on the site that we are considered chronically ill.  These are the things that keep us going. We have to have interaction. For so many years Parkinson's Disease was considered a death sentence. Once diagnosed the patient was shipped off to the nursing home and never heard from again. Did you know we can smile and laugh, sing and sometimes dance.  We can sew and do crafts and we can tell stories in many forms.  We are your history and ancestry.  If we are not cherished and allowed to flousih in our older age, it is the nation that looses.  Our viewpoint as "Old Hippies" was responsible for the end of the Vietnam War.  Could those same hippies have enough to say today to save the World?  My brain is still good but my legs are failing, yet once a year, in April I travel to New York City with all I can muster up and I celebrate Parkinson's and it's Patients.  I clebrate our gains for the year.  I celebrate the friends I have made and the new bonds I have made with my family as they struggle to understand this disease. My worry is the teen generation.  Are they listening?  Do they care that this disease and many others are coming at them with lightning speed?  Everyday someone younger is diagnosed with Parkinson's, or MS or ALS and there is NO CURE....Could grandma have given them some insight as to what was coming and how to handle it,.... had they only listened?.Would they be able to realize that grandmas faith was a detrmining factor in her survivial and theirs?  Would I have listened at their age? I think I did and I think I made a difference at Woodstock and FairAid.  I believed in the Kennedy's and Martin Luther King.  I had a dream and a passion..I had a good life and raised good kids and now have Parkinson's Disease and with that same passion I fight for a cure and pray for the World  love Pokie