Dear Ones,

This is our last week in Florida.  On Friday, April 13, we return to our home in White Rock BC where major reconstruction works will resume repairing the damage from the water leak that occurred in January.  We have been in Florida for nearly 3 months, quite possibly the longest time I have been in one place for most of the past 20 years.

In some ways it has been the most difficult week yet, garnering two hearty thumbs-up from Howard during our weekly Skype.  I have Mr. Parkinson’s attention and he is fighting back.  Meanwhile, I have a couple of interesting observations.  I bought a beach ball to help me with the Standing Qigong exercise (the instructions say to hold your arms out in front as if holding a large ball, so I thought that using an actual ball may make the exercise more doable – it works).  While carrying the beach ball in front of me from the store to the car, I noticed that I could walk much more easily.  Without the ball, my right leg tends not to step forward but rather only catches up with my left leg.  When holding the ball out in front with both hands, my right and left legs both move normally – quite a novel feeling since I haven’t been able to walk properly for over a year.  I have also discovered that I can walk even better and faster when I bounce the ball in front of me.  So now when I go for my daily walk I carry my beach ball with me!  Late news: I have just found that holding a tennis ball is also effective in correcting my gait.  I think it is more socially acceptable to carry a tennis ball with me than a large beach ball – unless of course I am at the beach.

A second observation this week has to do with the movement of my right fingers.  When I first saw a neurologist in February 2007, and was instructed to wiggle my right fingers as if I was “air typing”, I couldn’t move them.  This was a major piece of evidence in the preliminary diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.  As you can imagine, this has significantly impaired my ability to use a keyboard and to write.  Last Friday, I mentioned this to my chiro chi practitioner Lynn Migdal, and demonstrated the inability to move my fingers.  She adjusted my C-5 vertebra.  Since then, I have been able to move my fingers.  After 5 years, it is quite a novel feeling to have conscious control over my right fingers once again.

Being on Howard’s “Recipe for Recovery” has certainly tested my PD symptoms.  To an impartial outside observer, my symptoms (mostly the tremours) may appear to be worse than when I began the Recipe.  Yet in my mind – and heart, and soul – I feel I am making progress.  I do not need or want medications that hide my symptoms yet do nothing to prevent the progression of PD (for those already on PD meds, Howard’s Recipe has enabled many to cut way back on their use as their movement improves).  Mentally, I am firing on all cylinders.  Physically, I am somewhat impaired but I’m still able to get around and even find time for the occasional tennis game.  Spiritually, I am reawakening.  I feel great!

I have resolved to continue with the Recipe for as long as it takes.  Howard has completely recovered from PD by following it, as has Marie.  That’s two more people completely healed than are said to be possible according to conventional Western medicine.  I would rather live in hope of a complete recovery than resign myself to having an incurable, progressive disease.  So many people (me included) upon receiving the diagnosis of PD are dismayed that there is no hope offered whatsoever for healing.  Hopelessness defeats.  Hope heals.  Many people diagnosed with cancer report that hope has helped them recover against great odds.  I believe it can be the same for people diagnosed with PD or other so-called incurable neurological disorders.  One in a million is still better than impossible.  It is a fight worth fighting.

I love the unlovable,
I accept the unacceptable,
I dream the undreamable,
I accomplish the impossible.
I am limitless.

All my love,

Angela