Oh, *sod*

[julesjones]

http://www.paulkidby.com/news/index.html

Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer's.

This isn't just another favourite author of mine; this is someone I *know*, if not well. Science fiction's a small world, as is Usenet, where I know him from -- I knew the day would come when an announcement like this wouldn't be about a stranger whose work I liked, but someone I liked as a person. He atn't dead, not yet, but that letter chilled me.

Comments

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Oh, shit in spades. Why does this always seem to happen to people who had a use for their minds (except Reagan of course)? TP's early death would have seriously annoyed me, but the prospect of him losing his marbles (my own greatest fear) is far, far worse. Damn and blast.

[julesjones]

That was my reaction. He had what was thought to be a small stroke earlier this year, and this diagnosis puts that into perspective as an early warning sign. I'd really, really rather it had been something where he'd been at risk of an early fatal stroke, as happened to Jim Baen last year, than this.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Frankly if I got the early warning sign while still lucid, I would make use of it to travel to the nearest cliff. A mature student of mine, a woman in her sixties who'd just graduated with a first and begun to get work published, was struck right afterwards with a thing called Lewey Body's disease which acted like a combo of Alzheimers and Parkinsons; it destroyed her mind in months (its only virtue is that it kills pretty fast too). By good luck her book came out when she could still recognise what it was; a week later and she wouldn't have known it from the wall. And they talk about Intelligent Design? Bloody Stupid Johnson, more like...

[julesjones]

I remember you talking about that not long after it happened. Utterly horrifying, and the one consolation was that she did get to hold her published book while there was still enough of her left to know what it was.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Oh bugger.

Like you, I know him vaguely from cons and DW events, and well enough that he's not just a face on a podium but someone I value as a human being. This isn't fair. Life isn't, but that doesn't help.

[cat63.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the universe really likes to hammer home that life isn't fair, doesn't it ?

Bugger.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Not yet sixty... that's bad luck. I gather he has family to support him?

[julesjones]

Wife and daughter.

[sarahf.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I had a friend whose husband had early onset when he was thirty. That truly sucked. This is awful, because there's just no way to wish anyone well. It's good that he has a strong supportive family. May they continue to love each other.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

That's very sad news. One can tell from his writing that, not only is he a fine writer, but also a fine person.

Clutching at straws, didn't I see a news story the other day that suggested that a breakthrough might have been made in finding a cure for Alzheimer's?

[julesjones]

Not a cure so far, but a drug that can halt and to some extent reverse the degenerative process in at least some people. Someone has posted to the thread on alt.fan.pratchett to say that his grandfather was given the drug, and showed significant improvement in the period before he died. Early days yet, but it's not completely hopeless.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Oh. Bugger.

This is very sad news on several fronts. Having watched my mother-in-law succumbe to Alzheimer's, I know just how awful it is for those close to the sufferer because you lose the person you love, but they aintn't dead. :(

Also he's not that much older than me, so it helps drive home one's own fragility.

[jomacmouse.livejournal.com]

Oh glum and hell. That is not good news. I wish him and his family all the mental and emotional resources they need to deal with this.