''I'm flat on my back on a couch that's too short in a windowless room in the bureau. I can't even sit at a computer, much less make a keyboard work. My arms and legs are shaking uncontrollably. Although I am only 53 years old, I have already been struggling with Parkinson's disease for seven years. And right now the disease is winning.'' So begins Joel Havemann's account of the insidious disease that is Parkinson's. Havemann, an editor at the Washington bureau of the Los Angeles Times, has now been living with Parkinson's disease for over a decade. Like many of the million Americans with the disease, Havemann spent years denying his illness. He finally forced himself to learn its intimate details by treating it as an urgent story that needed reporting in the preparation of this book. In A Life Shaken, Havemann discusses how Parkinson's disrupts the brain's circuitry, how symptoms are managed through drugs and surgery, and where a cure might come from. But this book is also a personal and moving account of Havemann's own struggle with the physical symptoms and the psychological challenges of the disease. Although we know as much about Parkinson's disease as we know about any neurological disorder, its cause and cure remain frustrating mysteries to the medical community and to the millions of people around the world living with the disease. A Life Shaken explains what we know, speaking with authority and empathy to people with Parkinson's disease and to their families and friends.
