Sewing Support

By Lucretia Cardenas

The hands of Parkinson’s disease patients can tremble but they can still create a beautiful, meaningful quilt.

Proving that they are “not incapacitated, just disabled,” Parkinson patients from across the nation – who have become friends through an online chat room on PatientsLikeMe.com – crafted a quilt now circulating from one home to another. Right now, the quilt is with Conroe resident Vic Lopez, 64.

He’s battled Parkinson’s disease since 1998. When the illness worsened, he underwent a deep brain stimulation treatment in 2006. The connections in the wired stimulation system, which sends signals to his body to control his symptoms, aren’t great and Lopez had it replaced Thursday.

The quilt, which has two squares Lopez sewed and a third he helped to create, have deep meaning for Lopez – a strength among friendships formed, a strength of overcoming stigmas and a strength in taking on challenges. One square of the quilt symbolizes those strengths, with a picture of two tulips tied together for support by a string.

Another square describes the struggle of Parkinson’s patients.

“We’re fighting for our dignity, each day an endless test,” the poem reads. “We’re searching for the cure, so we can ease our quest.”

Lopez’s individual square has his screen name “vig wig” written on it and states that he “writes, fishes, naps, chats online, plays oldies music – garbage waits.” He also placed pictures on it of a fish he caught in Lake Conroe, a man wearing a large sombrero napping against a cactus and an LP record.

The quilt took just over a year to make, Lopez said. Each member of the online forum contributed a square, and a professional quilter bound them all together.

No decision has been made about where the quilt will end up, but the chat room friends don’t want it to gather dust in an office building or raffle it off, Lopez said. For now, it will continue to circulate from member to member across the nation so they can share the message the quilt represents.

“I’ve got Parkinson’s but it hasn’t got me,” Lopez said. “We can do this in spite of the disease.”