Locked in...

I am not one to do many movie reviews, but last night Meg and I watched "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and it was terrific. The movie is about a man (Jean Dominique Bauby) who suffers from a stroke in his 40s and is left with what is called "locked in syndrome". Basically he is left with complete paralysis of all the voluntary muscles in his body but is completely aware, awake, and able to think normally. Like the name of the syndrome suggests, he is completely trapped in his own body. The only exception to his paralysis is the ability to blink his left eye.

The movie is based on a true story and documents his thoughts, etc. as he deals with life in this condition. Eventually a therapist comes to work with him and develops a way that he can communicate with other people. As you can see from the picture, she organizes the alphabet based on frequency of use of the letters. She would start listing them off and he would blink when she got to the letter he wanted. This process would repeat until he would spell words and eventually entire sentences. The remarkable part is that he writes an entire book based on this mode of communication. It is this book (Le scaphandre et le papillon) that the movie is based on.

The story is very inspiring. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be trapped in my own body. Seeing what this man went through and how he turned it into an opportunity to express his emotions and his imagination was sometimes saddening and always humbling.

If you get a chance, this is one you should definitely see.