NEW - Audio CD -

"Fall Down Laughing; How Squiggy Caught Multiple Sclerosis and Didn't Tell Nobody" 

by David L. Lander, aka Squiggy

 Click on picture to go to Amazon link - no price listed.

Book - "Fall Down Laughing"
By David L. Lander

Published by Penguin Putnam, Inc., 2000

198 pages in easy to read text size
(no price listed at Amazon. Click on New and Used link at the site.)

Reviewed by LizOP
MSWorld's Book Reviewer

David L. Lander obviously knows how to write to keep the reader’s interest. Affectionately known as the character Squiggy from the Laverne and Shirley show, this character enjoys a reprise years after Lander’s diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis (MS.)

Lander is candid about how he went to great measures to hide his MS from everyone but his wife, Kathy, and daughter, Natalie. Many with MS, and family members, will relate to his fear of revealing his disease.

We know before we read this book, Lander revealed his MS (in 1999) but the reader may not know how it came about. Most won’t know how it affected him, his family, and career. This you should read.

Most people with MS don’t have a familiar face to the world. Reading Lander’s experiences, I can imagine the difficulty having MS and trying to maintain a high profile. Lander pulls no punches and tells it like it is. When he describes falling, I was right there with him in understanding and feeling the physical and emotional pain.

That is what I liked about his book. He wrote from the heart, with no pretense, and with obvious relief to talk freely. Lander successfully, for the most part, concealed his disease 15 years.

He speaks of meeting many with MS over the last few years and that he prefers to choose those meetings over acting opportunities.

Lander’s comedic gift with words shows in his writing. Comedy often makes a serious matter more bearable to discuss. Lander writes, "In the years since I’I've been diagnosed, I’I've come to know multiple sclerosis as a disease that promises nothing and never breaks that promise."

He continues, "The only way I've learned to live with it has been by learning to live without the things I've taken for granted. But it’s a slow process, and I dearly miss the things I can no longer do…"

I loved it when he wrote, "This may sound odd, but there has never been a better time to have MS." He talks about the ABC (Avonex, Betaseron, and Copaxone) drugs and how people diagnosed today have this medication as an option. Those of us diagnosed years before these discoveries could only treat our symptoms.

When his book was written, Lander was taking Avonex.

He is a Goodwill Ambassador for the National MS Society and travels throughout the country. Lander writes he loves this job because traveling and speaking puts him in touch with people who relate.

If you read his book, you should sense his desire to be part of an understanding community.

Even if his Squiggy character was not a favorite of yours, or before your time, I think this book allows us to look into his family room window. He allows us to see his weaknesses, struggles, and strengths and how he finally came to terms with his MS.

" Run. Run. Run. Thud! The story of my life," Lander writes about his falling down experiences. But he gets up laughing and relieved the world knows. His writing shows he has no big secrets and feels he is part of a courageous community.

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