He speaks briefly of the medical technology that saved his life as having "prolonged and refined the agony," and he writes tellingly of the intense solitude and loneliness of Sundays, which are not broken up with the usual contact with medical staff. Bauby tells us, for instance, of his ambivalence about being bathed and about phone calls with loved ones in which he can only listen. (Bauby was in this sense more fortunate than many LIS victims, who have no voluntary control at all.)įinally, there is this book, the product of Bauby’s suffering, character, and skill, in whose several dozen short prose explorations we are given, with grace, irony, and poignancy, but without self-pity, a moving testimony to the persistence of spirit (the lightness of the "butterfly") in the face of extreme physical disability (the heaviness of the "diving bell").
#BRAIN STEM STROKE RECOVERY FULL#
Then there is the process of composition, which dramatizes the plight of the victim of locked-in syndrome, who has a full mental and emotional life within but virtually no way to connect to others or the world outside. Few fall so far so fast, and the spectacle of that fall is part of the phenomenon of this book.
Picture Bauby’s situation as the father of two young children and editor-in-chief of French Elle, suddenly in a hospital bed, unable to speak or move his body, connected to intravenous and feeding tubes, utterly dependent on the care of others, and with no hope of recovery. Unable to write or speak, Bauby composed each passage mentally and then dictated it, letter by letter, to an amanuensis who painstakingly recited a frequency-ordered alphabet until Bauby chose a letter by blinking his left eyelid once to signify "yes." In what was likely another heroic act of will, Bauby survived just long enough to see his memoir published in the spring of 1997.Ĭommentary"Extraordinary," "monumental," and "inspiring" are words that appear frequently in reviews of this book, and they are appropriate. The composition of this book was an extraordinary feat in itself. This memoir, composed and dictated the following summer, consists of Bauby’s brief and poignant reflections on his condition and excursions into the realms of his memory, imagination, and dreams. There was no hope of significant recovery. Although his mind was intact, he had lost virtually all physical control, able to move only his left eyelid. Summary: In December 1995, at the age of 43, the author suffered a sudden and severe stroke in the brain stem and emerged from a coma several weeks later to find himself in a rare condition called "locked-in syndrome" (LIS). Read it every year & always get something out of it. I actually dont mind that as long as it is being shared, I could not care less.Īnyway, one of those books that makes you appreciate the small things in life. Everytime I have lent it out it never returns. This is the THIRD time I have bought this book.
0 kommentar(er)
