Not PANIC but PANC

Some people looked at me a little strange today - not because of something I did but because of something I didn't do. Carolyn and I were attending the 15th Annual PANC Living with Parkinson's Disease Educational Seminar and Resource Fair. We and about 200 other people.


People would look at me funny when they'd find out that Carolyn and I had just become members of PANC - Parkinson Association of Northern California even though it's been almost 1.5 years since I was diagnosed.

When my speech therapist gave me the information about PANC and the conference they were sponsoring, I admitted to her that joining a support group of fellow persons with Parkinson's disease scared me a little. I was really afraid that seeing lots of people who had the same disease I had but with more advanced symptoms would be depressing or frightening. It turns out not to be nearly as frightening as I expected and not depressing at all. For one thing, I met and enjoyed a conversation with several people whose Parkinson's were progressing much faster than mine. But more than that, I realized that the disease really affects everyone differently.

We had three doctors as our speakers discussing the topics of (slightly paraphrased) "When do I", "Diseases, cures, and there interactions", and "Brave new world in treatments for PD". The first talk made it clear that it's never to soon to ask but be prepared to be told to wait. The second talk scared us with all the possible interactions between Parkinson's, it's medicines and their side effects, and other diseases and their effects. It just made my head hurt.

The last talk was perhaps the most inspirational as the doctor claimed that Parkinson's would be the first neuropsychiatric disease to be cured, maybe not in the next 10 years but certainly during his practicing years. He also described what they're doing with deep brain stimulation surgery and gene therapy. It sounded like science fiction and he admitted it was highly experimental but it does hold out hope for people like me.