The Body Intervenes

What is it like to both observe and experience the slow encroachment of a disease that will rob you of physical strength and control of your limbs — and probably your brainpower and coherence? A degenerative disease for which there is no cure? A disease in which “progression” means inevitable decline, not a celebration of positive advance?

In This Faulty Machine is an anguished account of what Kathy Page is undergoing as she moves through the slow decline dictated by Parkinson’s disease. The author of eleven works of fiction (the award-winning Dear Evelyn is a favourite of mine), Page was in her early sixties when she began to have problems. She fell and injured her hand and found it increasingly hard to write. Next she was diagnosed with viral myocarditis and disliked what she assumed were side effects of the medication. A tremor began in her right hand. Soon everything to do with movement and coordination deteriorated. For an active, happily...