Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1216124 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-28
• Released on: 2002-05-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 229 pages

From Amazon.com
Morton Kondracke chronicles his wife's 13-year battle against Parkinson's disease with the same attention to nitty-gritty details and shrewd understanding of how power works that distinguish his political commentary. Kondracke doesn't airbrush how horrible it is to have Parkinson's (the squeamish should avoid the passages about Milly Kondracke's two rounds of deep-brain surgery), or how difficult it is to live with someone who does (the mere recitation of his caretaking activities will exhaust most readers). He provides unvarnished accounts of the battles among members of the Parkinson's Action Network and other disease activists competing for limited federal research funds, until they got real and decided to fight to double the National Institutes of Health's budget so everyone would get more money. And he refuses to offer a feel-good ending charged with false hope; the book's closing pages include a grim account of the Kondrackes' discussions about what to do if she becomes unable to swallow. (They settled on refusing the feeding tube and allowing her to starve to death, which "is not painful if the patient doesn't take liquids.") Offsetting this bleak material is a vibrant, loving, and equally candid portrait of the indomitable Millicent Martinez Kondracke, who began up-ending the admittedly self-absorbed, drivingly ambitious Kondracke's life from the moment they met in 1966. He'd planned to marry an Ivy-educated heiress who could further his career; instead he was swept away by a Mexican Jewish American firebrand who challenged authority on everything from a botched car repair to the school system's poor handling of their daughter's dyslexia. Seeing how powerful she once was, we share her anguish as she descends into disability--and her husband's hope that, despite all the current scientific projections, research will provide a breakthrough in time to save Milly. --Wendy Smith

From Publishers Weekly
The author, formerly a panelist on The McLaughlin Group and currently a columnist for Fox News, has written a deeply personal and bracingly honest account of how he and his wife, Milly, have coped with her diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. The Kondrackes met and were wed in the mid-1960s after Morton overcame his desire to marry up (Milly was a probation officer from a poor Mexican-American background). They appear to have had a stormy though loving marriage, raising two daughters. An extremely strong and powerful woman, Milly fought hard to obtain a good education for dyslexic daughter Andrea and forced her husband into treatment for alcoholism. Milly's passionate enjoyment of life made it very difficult for her, at the age of 47, to accept a doctor's opinion in 1988 that the tremors she was experiencing were the beginnings of Parkinson's disease. The Kondrackes finally came to terms with Milly's condition and began searching for a treatment. Milly underwent several operations and has had various drug therapies, but her condition continues to worsen. She is now dependent on others for physical care and can barely communicate. Kondracke provides a harrowing overview of how organizations for other diseases such as AIDS or breast cancer compete with Parkinson's advocates for badly needed research dollars. He describes his involvement with Michael J. Fox (diagnosed with Parkinson's) and Fox's political lobbying for funds. Drawing on his spiritual faith, Kondracke does his best for Milly, who is deeply depressed about her illness. He agonizes about when she will have to be fed through a tube and may no longer want to live. Photos. (June 12)Forecast: To promote his book to an audience beyond his primary D.C.-based constituency and to increase readers' awareness of Parkinson's disease, Kondracke is appearing on C-Span's Book Notes with Brian Lamb and the Today Show during the second week in June, which will help sales.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Columnist, commentator, and current cohost of Fox TV's Beltway Boys, Kondracke has written a highly personal book, a valentine to his wife of nearly 34 years, Milly. In 1987, this fiercely independent woman began noticing small changes in her handwriting and grip. It marked the beginning of the couple's descent into years of bafflement, testing, hope, and denial, coming to a final if begrudging acceptance of the diagnosis of an unusual variant of Parkinson's disease. Their story is tender, loving, and funny every couple's tale, yet uniquely their own. As Milly slowly loses her abilities, her husband works through his own frustrations and insecurities to take on the role not only of caretaker but of activist in the highly political world of research funding. With Michael J. Fox's announcement of his own bout with Parkinson's, the disease has found a place in the media spotlight, a position that the Kondrackes hope will lead to better treatments and, eventually, a cure. Whether or not it comes in time for Milly, her husband has seen to it that her courage and wit will be long remembered. Recommended for health and inspirational collections. Anne C. Tomlin, Auburn Memorial Hosp. Lib., NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Extremely moving story about a couple and their struggle
Morton Kondrake's book is about much more than his wife Milly's Parkinson's disease. It's also about their life together, their marriage, the differences that caused friction between them, Kondrake's struggles in his career and those to overcome his own weaknesses, including, for a time, alcoholism. What emerges is a story of quiet heroism, both his and Milly's, as she defies the odds and continues to prove that her will to live is greater than her despair. Kondrake also writes about the politics of research and fundraising for various diseases, and how some diseases have more cache than others, even if the disease garnering more print and air time afflicts far fewer people than other devastating ailments. This may not come as a shock to people but it is still important so that we can all do what we can to campaign to make disease research and funding more equitable.

I was most touched by Kondrake's unsparingly honest account of his own shortcomings as a man, a husband, and father, and how Milly, and eventually, her Parkinson's disease, made him grow into a far greater man than he was before. The fact that this is a true account makes this book very significant, and more moving than any fiction could be. It's impossible not to read it without tears.

Moving Account of a Devastating Illness
This country has an aversion to sickness and death, two things that will in time touch each and every one of us. Not a pleasant thought.

For 18 years I watched my own mother combat, with no hope of winning, the same illness Milly is fighting. Morton Kondracke is to be commended for sharing Milly's story. Heart wrenching, Saving Milly is by no means an easy read, but it is a must read. It is more than a story about Parkinson's disease. It's also a story about love and commitment and, yes, obligation, but also of politics. And all of it will open your eyes as well as your heart.

Kondracke doesn't sugar coat Parkinson's, he displays it in all of its vulgarity. Nor does he paint himself a saint in being Milly's primary caregiver. He gets angry with her, loses his temper, shouts at her. But it's not really Milly he is angry with. It's the Parkinson's. Yet how does one vent one's rage at a disease?

He also writes of the politics of Parkinson's, how, unlike cancer and AIDS, research for this debilitating disease is under funded. Kondracke shares his story with a journalistic detachment, but even so the reader will find him or herself moved by his plight and the plight of Milly. His message is simple: a cure for Parkinson's has been agonizingly near for a long time, but money is needed now. He knows that were a cure discovered tomorrow it would be too late to help Milly, but his fight goes on so that others might be saved from suffering her fate.

My hat is off to Morton Kondracke for sharing this side of his life, a side that one day most of us will experience firsthand, but also one which too many don't wish to glimpse, preferring instead to pretend it won't ever happen to them.

Saving Milly: Love, Politics, and Parkinson's Disease
A wonderfully gripping book, especially for those who have been touched in some way by Parkinson's Disease. Morton Kondracke is bravely honest about his relationship with Milly and about his own shortcomings. His knowledge about the politics of medical research and funding is enlightening and inspiring. It is a poignant love story that will touch everyone, and push many towards advocacy.

My father was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease approximately 15 years ago, and lives with many of the same difficulties that Milly has endured. Though emotionally difficult to read at times, it is nearly impossible to put down.

Highly recommended!