It’s been a long, hot summer. Since our group does not meet in July and August, September usually heralds the start of our new year.
We were scheduled to meet in-person on Wednesday, September 11. Our group facilitator and I realized several months ago that neither of us would be available to lead the group that day and coordinated with two of our members, who agreed to run the meeting in our absence. As frequently happens, life intervened and neither of them are available now either.
Sadly we find we need to cancel the meeting on September 11. I think this is a first—for one of our meetings, that is—but it can’t be helped. As John Lennon wrote and performed in “Beautiful Boy,” Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. That might be a good topic for discussion at one of our upcoming meetings.
Our next meeting will be October 2. Our 2024/2025 meeting schedule (below) can also be found here. For those of you who may wish to review previous speakers notes for 2022/2023 and 2023/2024, they can be found at the bottom of that webpage.
2024/2025 Meeting Schedule (dates are firm; In-person or Zoom format subject to change)
- September 11 – CANCELLED
- October 2 – Zoom
- November 6 – Zoom
- December 4 – In-person
- January 8 – Zoom
- February 5 – In-person
- March 5 – Zoom
- April 2 – In-person
- May 7 – Zoom
- June 4 – In-person
In case you missed last May’s meeting or are new here, a summary of what the group discussed, concluded, and decided moving forward with our meetings:
- Most everyone likes alternating Zoom and in-person meetings; we will continue doing so.
- Some of us can only attend Zoom meetings.
- Some of us have driving issues, so don’t know in advance if we can attend an in-person meeting.
- Overall we all like the idea of Zoom access to in-person meetings. We are looking into the feasibility of this option.
- We discussed nutrition as a topic for a just-us/share time meeting. Two members recommended the Netflix movie: Hack Your Health: The Secret of Your Gut, which mentions PD. Another member mentioned the nutritionist she sees in Dr. Sam Evans’ office advises people with PD against eating dairy. We discussed that PD is now believed to start in the gut and the benefits of the Mediterranean diet. Someone mentioned that Vitamin D is best taken with a high fat meal.
- We mostly agreed, with the abundance of information by professionals (including video presentations) freely available online, we no longer need to invite outside speakers to our meetings.
- Overall everyone likes having the website as a resource and to look back on months later, although some mentioned problems maneuvering around it. We plan to update the website.
- Managing Time (with doctor visits and activities) is another topic suggested for just-us/share time. Managing Anxiety is another suggested topic.
- Keep sending us your ideas and suggestions!