diving bell and the butterfly

Locked-in Syndrome Many of you will remember my earlier pieces on “locked-in syndrome”, a condition caused by brain stem injury in which patients are fully conscious but can’t move or communicate, except through eye movements or blinking. One of the most celebrated cases was Elle magazine’s fashion chief Jean-Dominic Bauby. He suffered a catastrophic stroke (which I suspect was due to a cocaine habit). As a result he could communicate with the world only by blinking. He dictated an entire book by having someone recite the alphabet and then blinking when they said the letter he wanted next. What determination! Bauby’s book was called “The Diving Bell and The Butterfly”. It signifies the feeling of being sealed in a heavy metal diving bell at the bottom of the ocean, while having a soul that is restless and wanting to fly away, like a butterfly. It was eventually made into a movie (moving in this sense could also mean very heart-rending). All this I wrote about in Letter From Serendipity 57. It’s now transferred here to the new alternative-doctor.com blog: Jean-Do Bauby Story Now a new study published in the British Medical Journal [BMJ Open, news release, Feb. 23, 2011] has shown that surprisingly many locked-in patients are kind of happy. Only 7% said they wanted to die (euthanasia).

Locked-in Syndrome Many of you will remember my earlier pieces on “locked-in syndrome”, a condition caused by brain stem injury in which patients are fully conscious but can’t move or communicate, except through eye movements or blinking. One of the most celebrated cases was Elle magazine’s fashion chief Jean-Dominic Bauby. He suffered a catastrophic stroke (which I suspect was due to a cocaine habit). As a result he could communicate with the world only by blinking. He dictated an entire book by having someone recite the alphabet and then blinking when they said the letter he wanted next. What determination! Bauby’s book was called “The Diving Bell and The Butterfly”. It signifies the feeling of being sealed in a heavy metal diving bell at the bottom of the ocean, while having a soul that is restless and wanting to fly away, like a butterfly. It was eventually made into a movie (moving in this sense could also mean very heart-rending). All this I wrote about in Letter From Serendipity 57. It’s now transferred here to the new alternative-doctor.com blog: Jean-Do Bauby Story Now a new study published in the British Medical Journal [BMJ Open, news release, Feb. 23, 2011] has shown that surprisingly many locked-in patients are kind of happy. Only 7% said they wanted to die (euthanasia).