The diving bell and the broken dvd

Tried to watch The Diving Bell and the Butterfly last night with Terrie. I read the book about 5 years ago and then heard they had started making the film, so have been waiting for ages to see it. For some reason I missed it at the cinema, so was all excited last night when Terrie bought it home with her to watch.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, the Editor of French magazine, Elle, who suffered a stroke at 41 and woke to find himself with Locked-In Syndrome,  his only form of communication with the world, blinking his left eye-lid. While most people would just give up and become depressed and bitter, Bauby, with the help of his speech therapist, writes a book. That's right, he writes a book. His speech therapist uses a unique technique of dictation, with Bauby blinking his eye when the alphabet is recited to indicate which letter he means. Letters become words - words, sentences, and viola, a book is born. And it is beautiful. While reading it, I remember being so deeply touched. Bauby says that the only two things not paralyzed are his imagination and his memory, so he 'travels' to different places, eating sumptumous meals, kissing beautiful woman and 'living' his life. It's his butterfly. His reality is his diving bell. Even writing this I start to get emotional thinking about the strength of character Bauby displayed. He is truly an inspiration.

My mum is a nurse and until recently, worked in the brain injury unit at a rehabilitation hospital here in Sydney. When I told my mother about the book, she relayed a story to me about a 35 year old woman she was nursing who was starting to emerge from Locked-In Syndrome. The lady was in the car with her husband after attending a party, earlier, her husband had a few drinks, and then drove them home. On the way he took a corner wrong and ended up crashing the car, slightly injuring himself, and putting his wife into a coma. When she woke, they found she had Locked-In Syndrome. Of course her husband was filled with guilt, and my mother told me how he would sit next to her just crying his eyes out. Her first words, when able to communicate were 'It's OK, don't cry'. Which makes me wonder exactly HOW people like Bauby, and this lady can have such strength, and in this case, forgiveness. And in the end, she recovered. Which is extremely rare, most people do not regain motor-control and they live their lives with full cognition, but paralyzed, literally locked-in their bodies.

So, after being so touched by the book, and also the story my mother told me, I was so eager to see the film. And wouldn't you know it, half way through the movie the DVD freezes. No problem I think, and grab the other dvd player from my room secretly thinking 'Terrie's DVD player is such a piece of crap, won't even play a brand new release'. Only to find that I'm taking my frustrations out on the wrong inanimate object, and the dvd has a scratch across it and won't play on my machine either - grrrr.

Without sounding all corny, the book/movie really does make you appreciate the little things. And the fragility of your mortality.

I guess I should stop complaining all the time...