This is such a great group of people, we all need everyone here with the different perspectives!

Thanks for this.

research for most of my tenure as a neuroscientist. It was only until i was stricken with PD that i ever really understood anything about what "real" clinical depression is. This brings to memory how the biologists would test for "depression" in rats. This was called the "forced swim test", where a rat was placed on an underwater platform which was lowered so the rat was forced to tread water untill it became so tired out that it just "gave up" and prepared to "go under". Just when the rat was ready to accept its fate, the platform was put under the rat and lifted up so that the animal had some "hope" of survival. The researcher would do the same test on another day after dosing the rat to see if the rat would swim a bit longer hoping to be "saved". Eventually the platform was raised in the same spot that it was lowered in, and the rats would catch on that they didn't have to "go under" if they could only hang on a bit longer and try to find the spot where the platform would be raised to "save themselves" again. That is one of the few tests that has even a wisk of correlation to human depression.
So you get PD, you are devastated. Your life starts to fall apart so you tire and want to give up. But sinemet and other drugs make you feel a bit better so you hang in there. As the disease progresses you just know that there must exist some "platform of help" out there to "save yourself", so you try harder. And low and behold, when you've lost just about everything, you realize that there is "hope", maybe not for a cure, but a lifestyle change, that will at least allow you to "hold on". So if you don't "go under" through despair, you can still find a platform, somewhere, a platform that you know will give you the "stability" to carry on.
Simple, but thats how i "deal" with PD.

Interesting correlation but a very depressive, cruel one. The majority of us humans take better care of our pets than we take care of each other. This past spring,we had a euthansia vet come to our house to put our beloved dog to sleep - a non stress, on her home turf situation. It was so very hard to do but it was all about her, not us. Unlike your rats, I know I have a plateform I can use when I need it and I know no one will take it away from me or kick it away. I plan on another 20 years of living with PD but I have my END OF LIFE wishes written - my last platform to let me go peacefully and not to have to worry about struggling. Everyone, not just those with a disease, should have their plateform ready and in the mean time learn to tread water - it's good exercise - both physically and mentaly. You don't need to justify your method of dealing with an uncertain life, but do be open to "other" ways.


TG