You may wonder how I found time to read; but I read a lot at night because sleep often eludes me.

I came across this book quite by accident while looking for a David Baldacchi novel.  "A Sundog Moment" is the first book of his sister, Sharon Baldacci.  

I will be honest; I could not put this book down.  It's the story of a beautiful woman, Elizabeth Whitaker, in her prime, who has led a charmed life.  She is still passionately in love with her wildly successful husband; she has a lovely daughter about to leave for college; in short, her life could not be better.

Then, suddenly, her world shatters with the onset of frightening symptoms: dizziness, disorientation,  lack of control of her body.  Elizabeth Whitaker has multiple sclerosis, a degenerative neuro-muscular disease with "no known cure."

Her journey from that point forward is never the same.  Her relationships with her husband, her mother, her daughter, and her friends all shift, not always for the better, as Elizabeth begins her journey of denial, anger, frustration and finally acceptance.

In the span of some three or four years, she goes from being self sufficient, to a brace, to a cane, to two canes, to a walker with the implication that she will soon be in a wheelchair.  During the process, her faith is stretched to the point that she decides there is no God.

Eventually, she leaves her husband, makes a decision to try marijuana, runs afoul of the law, and sees her daughter fall in love with a man who carries the defective gene for ALS.

This book could not have been written so beautifully and so authentically by someone who had never experienced a catastrophic illness.  The author was herself diagnosed with MS some twenty-five years ago.

I totally and without reservation recommend it, especially for those facing the uncertainty of a catastrophic illness, who question why bad things happen to good people, and who ponder that age-old question of fate versus free will.