“For half an hour, the machine that regulates my feeding tube has been beeping out into the void. I cannot imagine anything so inane or nerve-racking as this piercing beep beep beep pecking away at my brain. As a bonus, my sweat has unglued the tape that keeps my right eyelid closed, and the stuck-together lashes are tickling my pupil unbearably. And to crown it all, the end of my urinary catheter has become detached and I am drenched. Awaiting rescue, I hum an old song by Henri Salvador: "Don't you fret baby, it'll be all right.”
- Jean-Dominique Bauby
Jean-Dominique Bauby quote from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Bauby was a French journalist, author and editor who suffered a massive stroke in 1995 that left him with locked-in syndrome - a rare neurological condition that left his mind clear and alert but his body completely paralyzed. He could not move a single muscle except for his left eyelid.
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