Posts

David J. LeMaster

  Introduction I won’t name names and titles, but my brief depression over having Parkinson’s was caused by a book.  I waited for two weeks for a book to arrive from Amazon.com, one of those Everything You Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask things, written by a layperson just like me, someone who had the disease and wanted to share personal experience.   I tore into the book with my usual flair and enthusiasm.  True, I’d just been diagnosed with an incurable, degenerative disease, but I had goals.  I always wanted to be a professional writer, so as the disease took its toll, I reasoned, I’d have more and more time to write.  I’d focus myself on that novel that never quite got completed, or on that half-written project from years ago.              The book told about the disease and its symptoms.  It mentioned the stages and how it progressed.  I began to understand the subtleties of the disease.              But then the writer said something like this:  You had goals before.