I was fortunate enough to meet Terry not long before his diagnosis. I've never read one of his novels, but we shared an interest in space and astronomy that got us thru the queue for a hog-roast at a party. Friendly, astonishingly intelligent, and remarkably tollerant of a marquee full of Diskworld reading amateur astronomers - we joked about having joined the wrong end of the wrong queue as we seemed to be getting nowhere, but surely the wrong end of the wrong queue should be the right place to be. OK - you had to be there, it was funny at the time. It hurts to see people slowly being taken away from us in the way that alzheimers does.

My Grandmother has alzheimers, and has done for nearly a decade. Whilst it's essentially taken her away from us, it also saved her from having to deal with the death of her husband, my grandfather. She thought the post-funeral meal was just a nice lunch - fortunately, because of that, it was. On the advice of medical professionals and fellow family members, I do not visit her in the home where she is cared for. I am told that she will have no clue who I am, and that it would be impossible to explain who I was or why I was there without causing her great confusion, and thus upset. It has reduced a stunningly glamourous women to a shell, with nothing more than the cognative abilities of a much loved pet, who pays attention to treats being shown infront of her. A dreadfull and horrifying state for a human to be in. The one and only saving grace is that her persona, the essence of what she was, her intelligence and her abilitiy to comprehend and communicate died years ago, she's totally unaware of what is going on - she does not suffer - her body just has not caught up yet. We can't find anyone who disagrees with the suggestion that if she died quietly in her sleep tonight, it would be a good thing.

Poor Terry will reach that stage at some point. A dreadfull disease that those left behind have to suffer the worst of. But for some like Terry - the impending nature of his diagnosis will leave him in a cross over between ever increasing symptoms, and an ever decreasing ability to notice, understand and care about those symptoms. It will get worse, and then he wont even notice anymore. And then, eventualy, the enormous ammount of money he's given to research will pay dividends and someone will figure out a way to hold back the tide of terminal brain afflictions. It's a pity that medical conditions need a celebrity hero to gain the recognition and thus the funding that they need. And the irony here is that as alzheimers claims Terrys mind and steals it from him - it has - for a while - found a worthy, wordy, articulate and much loved spokesperson to fight it.