The walk is always the last weekend in April, which is just a beautiful time of year for the city and Central Park, which is where it is held. I'll download some of my photos to show you just what a show it  put on for me last spring. I mustard up all the finances I could  and made all the reservations myself and off I went to somewhere I had never been and to be in a place where I knew no one.  I can only say that American, Marriott and New York  and the Unity Walk Staff treated me like a queen . This year it will be more organized as the Team Patientslikeme.com swells in size and our knowledge has broadened .  I have traveled all year to seminars and symposiums trying to gather material and knowledge on how to fight this disease and win....if not for me, for the next generation.  People know when they pick up thier phone and I say,"This is Pokie" who I am and that I need information about something and I am fighting with all I have for Parkinson's.  I am co- captain of the team and our goal is over $25,000 and we will do everything we can to get that goal...We are now about 20 strong from all over the United States and very much united in the cause.

 One of the great people I met was David Zid from Columbus, Ohio.  Oh, now if you ever get the chance to meet this man, please go  David  graduated from the University of Ohio and is a APG certified personal trainer and President of Columbus Health Works and co author of  Delay the Disease .  He was soon drawn into Parkinson's disease through a newly diagnosed friend and from their he saves the world.  If  David didn't do anything but smile  he would win the world but he does very simple exercises that you can do sitting down or with a chair..  His program is Exercise and Parkinson's Disease and his book is Delay the Disease, and it works based on the idea that if muscles are not moved they will freeze and not be able to move and so David thinks Big. Big movements that start in small ways and over time the movement comes back.  When you see his presentation he comes down off the stage and  goes through the crowd and you can tell how much he loves what he does. He's not above lying on the floor or giving you a hug or just stopping the show and talking to you.  He really cares!

I had met his dad in Atlanta at the Young Onset Parkinson's Convention in August and was so surprised to see him again at Indianapolis, Indiana and realize that he was David's father. I was there for the Parkinson's Awareness Assn of Central Indiana, Inc. attending their symposium and David's dad recognized me first and then it was on.....What a wonderful family and the things they are doing for Parkinson's Disease are astronomical...

The next person I met that day was a tiny little gal making a difference..Kristy Follmar Executive Director of Rock Steady Boxing and a certified personal trainer.  She began her career as an Indiana Golden Gloves Women's Chanp(1999, 2000) and first eve Women's Indiana State Chanpion and NABC Featherwieght and Super Featherweight Champion (2002, 2003).  With this list of credentials, she is the sweetest , most down to earth little gal I have ever met.  She takes people sixties, seventies, and eighties and teaches them to box and love it.  She brought with her two examples, a woman in her sixties and a gentleman in his late seventies and you should have seen them hit that glove as she yelled right,  left, left, right.  They were the picture of self confidence and balance. These are two very important things to people with Parkinson's and two thing that we usually have very little of.

 As luck will have it, when I got tho the Davis Phinney Victory Summit in Denver, October 4th, Kristy and her personal trainer Bob Schaefer and I got a chance to really talk and exchange ideas on a cure and  talk about some people with great ideas within the Parkinson's network,  one being my friend Tom and the Loaner Closet for Needed Equipment.

As you can tell I have found my passion though being faced with a dibilitaing disease.  My daily trials are counterbalanced with possibilities for a cure and through taking that passion to the street awareness is raised.  Parkinson's is no longer someone in the corner of the nursing home in a wheel chair sleeping.  We are many, many strong fighting a disease that can strike you down in your teens and twenties as well as older.Will it take babies being diagnosed with this disease before we can fnd a cure?

Tom has come up with a program called A Loaner Closet for Pd patients. The plan would provide a central data base for the availability of wheelchairs, walkers and all other equipment we need to survive.. The plan is that no one go without or have to buy hospital equipment.  With the price of metal these days, people are turning this equipment in for scrap metal instead of passing it on.  As the economy gets worse the problem will become more critical.  We can no longer depend on the government to help us.  We need it to not be a beurocracy but a network of knowing, caring friends. With a little networking, I believe Tom can head this.  He's a terrific salesman with a huge heart.

 We'd like to have a corporate sponsor for this years walk.  Possibly Patientslikeme.com will match what we gather for support. Seems only right with all the notoriety we have brought the site and it's a tax right of fY.....right?

There are so many things that can be accomplished for all branches of neurological disorders if we can get past the red tape and paperwork. We are making a difference between ourselves. Each of us have our own special abilities and we work together as a whole very well.  This is a miracle concidering we are scatterd all across the United States.  We use all forms of communication to get the job done  and we even travel to sit down and brainstorm our ideas and needs.  I just got back from Denver and California and Ladyhawk will be going to California the first of November for a week.  We feel we are on the cutting edge of a great program.You see, people with Parkinsons are not just someone in a wheelchair  in the corner of a nursing home....  As always Pokie

 We talked for hours that night as only true friends can.  You see true friends never pay any attention to the outside they only deal with the heart. This guys heart is huge and he has a natural knack for making you laugh. He was in so much pain and he really saw no reason to be were he was in life. We prayed and soon it was morning and he was gone in cyberspace. Not to long after that I got a call saying Tom was in the hospital with stroke number three and was not doing well.  The whole site set up a prayer chain for Tom and before long we heard he could talk and was going to make it.

 Now, it's October and my buddy is back better than ever.  His wife has left him and he's taken several more falls but he's hanging in there joking with everyone on the site and everywhere else.  He's planning on getting back into boxing and building models of ships and planes and this year he will be our 'chef in the park' for the 2009 Parkinson's Unity Walk....Our own Tom from New York the Rams Fan.....love ya Pokie