Locked in again

Some years ago, I got hold of and presumably read (on my Kindle) the short book noticed at reference 2. A book dictated one letter at a time with an eyelid by a chap in his mid 40s who had had a massive stroke and who had been a successful journalist and editor. Sadly, he died shortly after finishing the book, which went on to be a best seller and to be made into a film, a film which attracted some controversy by being a bit free with a story about people who were alive and present.

Having another go at the rather longer book at reference 1, I was prompted to give the short book another go, which has occupied the last couple of days. Perhaps being five years older, I am a bit more alive to what being damaged or disabled, near totally paralysed in this case, might entail. Some of which I share below.

A lot of his time he appeared to have been in his bed. He could see and hear but he could not move in any very useful way - except one of his eyelids.

It took a while to get used to communicating with his eyelid, one letter at a time, with his interlocutor working through the (frequency ordered) alphabet for each letter. A procedure which was terribly long winded and killed off any kind of light conversation - the stuff of most conversation out in the real world. I imagine that one would come to value visitors who were happy to prattle on in without needing too much prompting. Or who had decent reading voices. While, on good days, he was able to play 'hangman' with his son - a simple children's game, a variation on twenty questions, which I only very vaguely remembered, while BH could remember more or less how it was played. See reference 5.

He also had to get used to the shock that was very visible on the faces of those who came to see him for the first time.

As a journalist he seems to have travelled a good deal, and bed-bound he seems to have spent quite a bit of his day more less happily day-dreaming about places he had visited in life.

Presumably, having been successful in life, he was in a better class of hospital, but the standard of nursing care still varied a good deal, both from time to time and from nurse to nurse. He tells, for example, of being shaved with a blunt razor, apparently rather unpleasant, without being able to do or say anything about it. Or of his television being turned off in the middle of a football match (or, in any event, something that he wanted to watch), when the nurse decided that it was bed time. Or no-one thinking that he did not want the full sun on his face in the afternoon.

He had his own room, but noisy neighbours were a recurring hazard. Like the child who had a very noisy toy duck. His hearing was not quite right either, so noises like the clattering of trolleys in the corridor were a trial. About which he could, again, do nothing.

In which connection some of his slang is quite picturesque. So 'fag end shelf' or 'portuguese' for ears - with this last being a sort of oyster (Crassostrea angulata).

PS 1: along the way, rather than get up and use a dictionary, I was asking my Samsung telephone about some of the words which I did not know, in effect asking Google, who found one of these words at reference 6. A substantial blog, running for about ten years, 2009-2021, and clocking up around 3,000 entries. With each of the entries offering translations, etymology, synonyms, examples of use and illustrations for a subject word, for example 'viorne', for our viburnum. Certainly an entertainment, although the thin coverage means that it is not a dictionary and search is not accent blind, which is a nuisance. But at least 'boulette' for blunder attracts a picture of Past Master Johnson. 

PS 3: neither Google nor Linguee recognise this usage, but Collins-Robert does, so it is very probably OK..

PS 3: perhaps these days, twenty years later, there are electrical gadgets which can work wonders with the flicking of eyelids. Or which read thought commands via a headset. Maybe even drive a wheelchair. Or something.

References

Reference 1: Being You: A New Science of Consciousness – Anil Seth – 2021.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/02/locked-in.html.

Reference 3: Le scaphandre et le papillon  - Jean Dominique Bauby – 1997.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Dominique_Bauby.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangman_(game).

Reference 6: https://frvocabulary.blogspot.com/.