One day, I drove up the driveway after work. When I stepped out of the car I couldn't straighten up, I crawled on all fours to the side door. I had snapped.

I went straight to the phone, still on all fours, and called my family doctor. "You've got to help me," I cried, in terror and in pain. "I can't move my muscles. Everything is frozen inside me. I feel like I'm dying. I can't go on like this."

"Okay, George. I'll get you in to see a neurologist right away."

"I don't know what a neurologist is," I said, "but I've got to know what's happening to me. I know it's not in my head. When can I go?"

A week later, I was face to face with Dr. Richard Gladstone, head neurologist at North York General Hospital. His examination was swift. His first words to me afterwards were, "You're going into hospital for tests, just to make doubly sure. When can you come?"

Out of the depths of frustration and despair, I snapped "Tomorrow."

The next day I was admitted to the self-care unit of the hospital. Those were the days of big budgets and program initiatives. In the self-care unit, I could wear regular clothes, and eat in the hospital cafeteria while the tests were performed. Then they sent me to the Toronto General for a catscan, a new technology at the time.

The diagnosis was swift and certain. "George, you have Parkinson's. The good news is it can be controlled. The bad news is we don't know yet how to cure it."

At 34 years old, to me it was still a sentence of death. What did I know? However, I liked and trusted Dr. Gladstone. I couldn't stand the pain and punishment anymore and he was throwing me a lifeline. From that moment on, I knew my life was going to change radically.

When I climbed into the car after that momentous pronouncement, Linda asked, "Well, what did he say?"

"He said I've got Parkinson's." Linda slammed on the brakes so hard I thought I was going through the windshield. "Oh my God," she wailed. "What are we going to do?"

"Don't worry," I tried to calm her. "I'm so relieved. I'm not scared now. He promised he'd see us through it. It can be controlled."

From that day on, I began a course of medication that had me feeling relatively normal within two weeks.

I was elated. It wasn't all in my head. "There's no such thing as a nervous breakdown anyway," Dr. Gladstone told me right off. "If you're nervous system really breaks down, you're dead."

I was alive. I was going to live. Best of all, I was going to beat back this devil. I knew it, because I believed in Dr. Gladstone. He became my lifesaver, my lifeline, and my mentor.