The significance of the day is not lost on me as I make this announcement. It would have been my father's 96th birthday today. Jack Verney was a published writer of history, producing two books in the years after his long teaching career. The Good Regiment: The Carignan-Salières Regiment in Canada, 1663-1668 was published in 1991 when he was 72, and O'Callaghan: the Making and Unmaking of a Rebel was published in 1994. The family tradition seems to be the pursuit of writing in retirement with my brother Peter Verney also following this path with the publication of his family history entitled Making a Difference: the Lives of Jack and Joan Verney, published in 2010. Now it is my turn. Notes of a Love Song: Day-to-Day with Parkinson's Disease has just been released. It is an edited version of this blog and, I hope, a much more accessible format for readers. It is available at the above link to Friesen Press in hardcover, softcover and as an ebook. In the coming weeks it will be more widely available from other booksellers such as Amazon.
It is my hope that this work will find its way into the hands of health professionals, caregivers and family members who are working with loved ones afflicted with Parkinson's Disease with Dementia, especially those who choose to care for them at home. Dr.Wendy Yeomans, Medical Director of the Palliative Care Programme at Vancouver General Hospital and Clinical Instructor in the Department of Palliative Medicine at the University of British Columbia has written a cogent forward discussing the choices available to us in the field of palliative care.
Thank you to those who have followed this blog so faithfully and to those who are newly arrived. It is your overwhelmingly positive response that inspired me to pursue this project.
