Jean-Dominique Bauby is an editor for French Elle magazine. He is in his early forties and enjoying life with his young children when he suffers a massive stroke that leaves him completely disabled. Jean’s stroke results in a case known as locked-in syndrome. Jean is paralyzed from the neck down, although he can swivel his head from side to side. His only form of communication is code blinked out with his left eyelid. Jean’s stroke hits with a sudden cruelty. IS whisked to a clinic by his sister-in-law and slips nost immediately into a twenty day coma. “And proof that I still want to be myself. If I must drool, I may as well drool on cashmere” (Pg 17). When Jean finally comes back, he is in Room 119 of the Naval Hospital in Berck-sur-Mer on the French Channel coast.
This is the room where Jean spends the rest of his new life. His days are a slow monotony of baths, speech, and physical therapy, and, if he is lucky, brief trips outside. Most of Jean’s time is consumed with letting his mind flutter like a butterfly. In his mind, Jean travels to Hong Kong, remembers pieces of his old life, composing books and plays, and creates elegant meals. He undergoes physical therapy that may only bring about the tiniest bit of movement after several years. He works with a speech therapist in the hopes of regaining some control over his breathing and speech. In the meantime, the therapist has reordered the alphabet and developed a communication code especially for Jean. Jean blinks his one working eyelid until he reaches the letter desired and then starts again for the next letter in a word.
My thoughts on this book was interesting. How someone in their forties could go through such a horrible time amazes me, I could never but he gains all speech abilities back. I mean, now understand how a person can go through a disability. I never fully understood it since I haven’t been through what they’ve been through but I sort of understand it. I think this book was assigned so it can show us what it’s like to be in a disabled person’s shoes and understand them more. I didn’t really gain much insight about myself from this really. If I were to rate this work, I would give it a 8.5 out of 10, although it’s good, I didn’t really get much from it. I would definitely recommended this book to someone else if they were learning about what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes and how they are during the process of regaining back their strength.
