Joan Didion, celebrated American writer and essayist, dead at age 87
Joan Didion, a celebrated American writer, died on Thursday, according to her publisher, Knopf.
The essayist died due to complications from Parkinson's disease at the age of 87 in her New York City home.
"We are deeply saddened to report that Joan Didion died earlier this morning at her home in New York due to complications from Parkinson's disease," Knopf said in a statement shared with Insider.
I think the "doesn't kill you" thing really meant "doesn't kill you quickly" in the same way that more acute conditions do (like certain cancers).
I've never seen a life expectancy study that didn't conclude that PWP had shorter life expectancies than non PWP (of course the numbers differ across the studies) so one way or another, it's certainly killing plenty of PWPs.
I hate it when people say that to me, because it is basically a dismissal of the fact that PD should be taken as a serious, debilitating ailment! When someone dies, from choking, not being able to swallow, due to motor neuron disease (ALS), it’s well known that ALS is a disease that can’t be taken lightly! When someone dies, having PD, because of swallowing difficulty/choking, it’s because of complications of PD. So, I’m at the point where I just tell people I just have typical old people’s problems, and leave it at that, if they question me about my slowness, tremor, difficulty where I can’t eat certain foods, etc.
When my father, who had Parkinson's, died at age 93-1/2, his doctor told me there was no doubt he'd died from Parkinson's. But for whatever reason, isn't recognized and he couldn't write it on his death certificate. He wrote, complications of Parkinson's. The disease itself doesn't kill, like cancer or a heart attack or pneumonia, etc.. In my father's case, he weakened and withered away, confined to bed but cognizant until his final moment.
I love Joan Didion's work. Does anyone know if her Parkinson's was public knowledge? I've read her last book and an article or essay somewhere where she writes of not being able to eat and her friends and co-workers concern for her frail condition,
I have always been frustrated by this nomenclature. When a death is reported as being "due to complications from" PD, what does the euphemism mean? Pneumonia? Choking? Breathing difficulties or heart failure due to autonomic neuropathy? Falls? Complete shutdown of the digestive system?
One of my PD friends just died. His neurologist stopped one of his meds to try a new med in its place with the hope of better symptom response to the new med over the old med. Unfortunately, the old med required that the patient be weaned off of it slowly. My friend essentially went crazy and his neurologist was unable to get control of the situation and my friend went into a coma and died 10 days later. I'm not sure if you could say the PD killed my friend or the negligence of the doctor killed him. Why do you take a patient off of a drug cold turkey, that requires a slow withdrawal ? That makes no sense to me, but the end result is that my friend is now dead and his wife is a widow, just in time for Christmas. I guess you could say his death is from PD, but he was in relatively good condition just prior to the doctor stopping the drug he had him on. The doctor that treated him in the hospital said that the drug he was on was not supposed to be stopped all at once and needed to be slowly withdrawn and that stoppage was the reason for the ensuing complications which quickly took his life.
By the time it happened and I found out, he was already in the hospital. Now it would be awkward for me to ask his wife, so I don't know. It wasn't Sinemet though because he wasn't able to tolerate Sinemet when his neurologist first gave it to him.
Does anyone know how many years Ms. Didion lived with PD? A variety of google searches failed to indicate the year of her diagnosis. I watched a documentary about her which was made in 2017. She appeared to have mild dyskinesia, but was otherwise in pretty good shape.
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