On and Off

If you are an honorable member of the P club, you will find here something of yourself. You will also find a lot of me (author's privilege) and some way forward for us all.I stepped to my girlfriend's apartment, took a deep breath, and smelled the oxtail cooking on the stove. I don't really like this type of stew, but it smelled gorgeous as anything other than industrial pink soap would.My girlfriend froze to the spot. It was known that I could not smell anything. Only when I told her I smelled laurel leaves and allspice, then she understood I wasn't pulling her leg.The juries are still out on the question of how, when, and why.There is a sense to Parkinson's, but sometimes we are all too occupied with our daily hell to notice between the ON and OFF states management and the pain. The research community is in no better shape; neither is the medical community. Modern medicine brought wonders to our species, but when a researcher pitches for a research grant, he must keep it small enough so they will be able to win such a pitch.In the modern world, we must take a different approach. Gone are the days when a single researcher was shattered as a child when their grandmother went through the stages of Parkinson's disease and then vowed to dedicate their lives to research and to the eradication of Parkinson's. This could be a good holiday season movie (all rights reserved) but not a cure.Getting rid of Parkinson's disease must take another approach, both scientifically and financially. Such a task must consider industrial interests that are beyond the traditional pharmaceutical companies. The latter may introduce methodic obstacles. Also, the financial backing for such research may not be the traditional pharmaceutical companies but some other player altogether. In the meanwhile, we must keep ourselves functioning, manage our ON and OFF states, and reinvent ourselves every day at a time.

-- Rona Davis