In the two years I spent interviewing and researching Doctor Dopamine, my biography of the scientist Dr. Harry Robertson, one theme became clear: we wanted to build a perpetual motion machine when it comes to research.
The first step came in the writing. Harry talked me through his decades of exploration of the causes and effects of dopamine depletion, as experienced by people with Parkinsons disease. I read dozens of books and spoke to many of his colleagues. Harry insisted on writing “as funny” a book as possible, so I did my best to make that research readable for people actually coming to terms with a Parkinsons diagnosis.
About half the books I read were personal memoirs, tragic stories of a life interrupted. The other half were packed with science and positivity. One suggested about 300 things to do after getting a Parkinsons diagnosis, but none included crawling under your desk and crying, which is what I wanted to do when we learned my father-in-law had Parkinsons.
So if you read Doctor Dopamine, you will in 200 snappy pages come away with a good understanding of what we know about the strange condition, and what lines of research are most promising.
The second step of the perpetual motion machine is that when I get my royalty cheque for Doctor Dopamine, I donate 100% of it to Parkinsons Canada. The first donation was small, but made, and I’ll stick to that commitment.
That means when you buy and read a copy, you gain a deeper understanding of what it is like to live with Parkinsons, inside and out, and you directly fund research into continuing Harry’s work of hunting down this disease and stopping it.
