Match it for Pratchett

photo credit: Myrmi

Terry Pratchett, one of my favorite authors, suffers a rare form of early-onset Alzhemer’s disease. This was diagnosed recently as the cause behind his recent “phantom stroke”. Thankfully, this hasn’t impaired his ability to write and he still feels a time for “at least a few more books yet”.

Terry, at the age of 59, has recently come up against the underground status of the disease and the support given to suffers relative to other diseases such as cancer patients. In fact, the amount of funding in Britain for Alzhemer’s disease research is a mere 3% of the total given towards cancer research and support. He dryly remarks, in typical Pratchett style:

The NHS kindly allows me to buy my own drugs because I’m considered too young to have Alzheimer’s for free. I could get hold of crack more easily.

Last week, the author announced a whopping £500,000 donation towards Alzhemer’s disease research and Discworld followers the world around have decided to conduct their own whip ’round to collectively match Terry’s generous gift.

If you wish to make a donation you can do so here with a simple credit card payment.

via. Boing Boing.