Have just 3 minutes? You can help!
This is my mom. Isn't she beautiful?
I took this photo of her when she and I visited Maui in February of 2007. Mom had just retired and she and I enjoyed a beautiful visit to paradise.
My mom is one of the most amazing people I know. She is strong and independent. For the last several years though, she's been fighting Parkinson's disease. She's doing great and still able to do most of the things she has always enjoyed. However, some things, like travel, just don't seem like as much fun to her anymore.
Parkinson's disease is something I can currently only describe as odd. It hits different people in very different ways. Mom has tremors and some pain and she tires easily. Her progression has been relatively slow compared to what I've seen for other people. If you want to know more about Parkinson's disease, you can read this from the National Institutes of Neurological Disorder and Stroke.
I am writing today to ask you to help fight Parkinson's Disease by participating in a simple, pain-free research project. There is a new project, shared in the TED talk that I've embedded below (you can access it here if the video doesn't work). All you have to do is make a phone call. The video is less than six minutes long. The phone call takes only about 3 minutes. To find out more about this new research, visit Parkinson's Voice (http://www.parkinsonsvoice.org/). This is also where you go to get the number to call. Numbers are available worldwide.
Over the last six or eight months I've been trying to learn more about this disease and I'm amazed at how fragmented the information is. In the future, I'll be sharing more information about Parkinson's Disease - and particularly about new research and ways people can get involved in helping to identify, diagnose, and treat this disease - and hopefully, someday, find a cure.