PATIENT2PATIENT NEWSLETTER
December 2003

Please visit our Web site at: www.Patient2Patient.net


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In This Issue:

* From the Director
* Quotation of the Month
* Parkinson's and Alzheimer's WebGuide Updates
* Holiday Gift Idea - Help Someone You Care About
* Sponsorships
* Featured Writings: Poetry & Quotes
* Humor, and more humor


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~ From the Director ~

I don't know of anyone, either early or later in life, whose ambition was
to become a patient. Or, for that matter, a caregiver. It is the
circumstance that we find ourselves in and that we struggle with.

Like everything in life, our role as a patient is cyclical. After a quiet
period I suddenly found myself facing a host of new medical conditions,
facing difficult questions and running and running (and running) to one
doctor and hospital after another.

No one wants to be a full time patient. We do what we need to do for our
health so that we can enjoy our lives, our families, our friends - all
those activities which give us pleasure and meaning. We do what we need
to do to sustain us and to enable us to continue aspiring toward all those
things that we still want to accomplish.

So as we approach this holiday season, which at the darkest time of the
year marks concurrent holidays for so many religions, rather than providing
more patient centered advice and ideas we are instead encouraging everyone
to take a break, to focus and remember those things which make our lives
lighter, and provide meaning.

So, instead of our usual patient-centered advice in the Featured Article
section, you'll find it offers some extra humor, thoughts and quotations.

I hope you find something here that inspires you, or makes you laugh,
and helps usher you into the holiday spirit.

Be well,

Andrew Robinson, J.D.
Executive Director
Patient2Patient

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 ~ Quotation of the Month ~

"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not
expect to sit."
--Nelson Henderson

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~ Updated Parkinson's and Alzheimer's WebGuides  ~

Our updated Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Webguides will be available as
of December 15th. You can order a one-year subscription to either of
these WebGuides from our Home Page: www.Patient2Patient.net.  Simply
click on either "Parkinson's disease" or "Alzheimer's disease" in the
scroll-down menu and follow the instructions.
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~ Holiday Gift Idea - Help Someone You Care About ~

If you are searching for a gift for someone you care about who's diagnosed
with Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's disease, consider sending them a
one-year subscription to a Patient2Patient WebGuide.

Receiving a one-year subscription to one of our recognized WebGuides
enables those patients to quickly and easily find the best and most
current information, resources and support for all aspects of their
illness. Likewise, caregivers will also find a subscription to be a
highly useful gift.

And a one-year subscription is only $24.95!

To order, go to our Home Page, www.Patient2Patient.net and choose either
Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease. When you purchase a
subscription, simply enter the e-mail address of the person you want to
receive it and we will notify them of your gift.

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~ Sponsorships ~

Ideally, we'd like to create a WebGuide for every existing disease. So
if you know of an individual, organization or group that may be interested
in sponsoring a Patient2Patient WebGuide, please contact Andrew Robinson,
Executive Director at Sponsorship@patient2patient.net. You'll be helping
thousands of patients in need of critical and credible health information.

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~ Featured Writings  ~

Excerpt from A Reed
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I am no trumpet, but a reed, -
 A broken reed, the wind indeed
   Left flat along a dismal shore;
Yet if a little maid or child
Should sigh within it, earnest-mild
  This reed will answer evermore.


Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.


Hope is the thing with feathers
By Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

THE HUMAN HEART
By Campbell McGrath

We construct it from tin and ambergris and clay,
  ochre, graph paper, a funnel
  of ghosts, whirlpool
in a downspout full of midsummer rain.

It is, for all its freedom and abstinence,
  an artifact of human agency
  in its maverick intricacy,
its chaos reflected in earthly circumstance,

its appetite mirrored by a hungry world
  like the lights of the casino
  in the coyote's eye. Old
as the odor of almonds in the hills around Solano.

Filigreed and chancelled with flavor of blood oranges,
  Fashioned from moonlight,
  yarn, nacre, cordite,
shaped and assembled valve by valve, flange by flange,

And finished with the carnal fire of interstellar dust.
  We build the human heart
  and lock it in its chest
And hope that what we have made can save us.

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~ Quotes ~

"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy
enough people to make it worth the effort." -Herm Albright

"Think of all beauty still left around you and be happy." - Anne Frank

"Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him
from being a camel." -G.K. Chesterton

"The secret of happiness is to make others believe they are the cause
of it."  - Al Batt

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

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~ Humor  ~


Q: How many politicians does it take to change a light bulb ?
A: Two. One to change it, and another one to change it back again.

Q: How many philosophers does it take to change a light bulb ?
A: Hmmm... well there's an interesting question isn't it ?

Q: How many Jewish mothers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None. ("That's all right...I'll just sit here in the dark...'')

Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: How many can you afford?

Q: How many Fisherman does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Four, one to change the light bulb and three to brag about how big the
old one was and about the one that they would have changed, but "It got
away"

Q: How many jugglers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One, but it takes at least three light bulbs.

Q: How many new-agers does it take to change a light bulb ?
A: Two. One to change it & one to check the new one for bad psychic
auras.(and optionally another dozen to perform the dance of the renewal
of the light.)

Q: How many surgeons does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Three. They'd also like to remove the socket as you aren't using
it now.

Q: How many Maoists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One to screw in the bulb and a thousand to chant "Fight Darkness!"

Q: How many Psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one, but the bulb has got to really WANT to change.

Q: How many TV evangelists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One. but for the message of light to continue, send in your donation
today.

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~One Last Thought~

"The world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful
souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."  - Henry Miller

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Feel Good!

The Staff of Patient2Patient

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We welcome your comments about this newsletter and our WebGuides
- Feedback@patient2patient.net.

(c) Copyright 2003 Patient2Patient, LLC.  You are welcome to forward
this issue to someone you know, in its entirety (without cutting).