Legwork Inspiring Journey Chronic

``As a reporter, I am accustomed to answers and completion. My stories have a beginning, middle, and an end. MS, on the other hand, is a never-ending middle.'' Former TV consumer-affairs journalist MacFarlane, writing with her twin sister, here recounts how in 1986, at age 41, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and tried to fight the progressive deterioration imposed by this autoimmune disease of the central nervous system. The book considers the great personal costs of her illness (the loss of her job, the end of her marriage) and the therapies she underwent. The authors also document MacFarlane's experience as the patient of Dr. Irving I. Dardik, whose ``wave theory of exercise and recovery'' for MS sufferers, guaranteeing full recovery, she attacks as fraud. Despite months of treatment (and Dardik's fee of $100,000), MacFarlane's physical condition worsened. Sporadic improvement was apparently due only to 4-Aminopyridine, an experimental drug prescribed to her by another doctor. Her civil suit against Dardik, filed in both New York and New Jersey, is still pending, and this briskly told story will rouse sympathy and indignation. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (Oct.)