Dear Members,

And so the big wheel of life continues to turn, Christmas has arrived and the new year is pending. Summer is here and this is not only the festive season, to a lot of us it is the season of relief. I recall the discomfort of cold winter mornings, working with cold steel, and in the country, frosts that stayed on the ground till about 9 or 10 o'clock. There seemed to be no way to warm up till about 11 o'clock. Summer had its problems as well but they were not as bad as cold cracking skin. Perhaps we could spare a thought for those who find summer the worst season. These people are in a minority, but they do suffer badly during the summer season, possibly worse than the rest of us do in winter.

Since our last newsletter, I have done the seminars at Taree and Coffs Harbour. Once again concerns were raised about the problems country people face in regard to treatment facilities. The main problems appear to revolve around those who need UVA and PUVA treatments and those who need hospitisation. There appears to be a very definate fear of having to take time off work for these treatments. To the best of my knowledge the nearest venue available for these people is Royal Newcastle Hospital. For those needing UV treatment, to avail themselves of this facility requires a full day off work to travel there and back. Added to this is the cost of traveling. Put both together and there is not much left in the weekly pay packet. It is not hard to understand why these people are more afraid of having treatment, than they are of the Psoriasis itself. Given that jobs are hard to come by in country areas, the situation, on a whole, is one of stress which only serves to make their Psoriasis worse. The irony is, that the general climate of the North Coast is supposed to be one of the best for Psoriatics.

The fact is the all the seminars I have done on the North Coast have the best attendance, (with one exception), and have by far the greatest number of severely afflicted sufferers. I met one man at Coffs Harbour, who in my estimation, should have been in hospital. His coverage was vast but he was still working, even though his job required him to work at a furnace. He is outwardly a jolly man with a wonderful sense of humour, but he has that peculiar disadvantage that most of us experience, where we look well even though we are very ill. Another disadvantage we have is the ability to 'soldier on', secure in the knowledge that we are incurable, and we 'have to live with it as best we can'. This man had been soldiering on for 20 years.

Some people in this situation are not aware that they can be admitted to a hospital for treatment and have gone on for years without seeing a doctor about their Psoriasis, becuase they believe nothing can be done for them.

I can relate well to this as I have done the same thing. The day before I was admitted to Canberra Comminity Hospital in late 1964, I was loading hay onto a truck with about a 90% coverage of thickly scaled Psoriasis. A local GP had arranged for me to see a dermatologist in the ACT and I had worked uu to the last hour, as labour was short, and farmers were wanting to get their hay undercover. At that time, I too was secure in the knowledge that I was incurable and therefore simply had to put up with it, and live with it as best I could. I went to Canberra very skeptical of any hope.

As it turned out, I was admitted to Canberra Hospital immediately and I stayed for 8 weeks. I went home 'spotless'. These are the things we do and we do them well, too well, and we pay a high price when we reach the end of our Psoriatic rope. Some of us pay the ultimate price. By 1964, I had learned not to expect too much in the way of relief for my condition, until I met the Ca