Reality of Disability Blog Posts

“When I began a diet a week before my stroke, I never dreamed of such a dramatic result.” - Jean-Dominique Bauby Jean-Dominique Bauby...

“Today it seems to me that my whole life was nothing but a string of those small near misses: a race whose result we know beforehand but...

“I shed a few tears as we passed the corner café where I used to drop in for a bite. I can weep discreetly. People think my eye is...

Excerpted from the book: The Brain That Changes Itself Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science By Norman Doidge,...

“Wind begins to whip up the sand. The tide has gone out so far that swimmers look like tiny dots on the horizon. The children run to...

“Today is Father's Day. Until my stroke, we had felt no need to fit this made-up holiday into our emotional calendar. But today we spend...

“I need to feel strongly, to love and to admire, just as desperately as I need to breathe. A letter from a friend, a Balthus painting on...

“Mysterious paradox: time, motionless here, gallops out there. In my contracted world, the hours drag on but the months flash by.” -...

“My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space...

“But for now, I would be the happiest of men if I could just swallow the overflow of saliva that endlessly floods my mouth. Even before...

“Under the physical therapist’s gaze, I am a Tour de France long shot on the verge of pulling off a record-setting victory. Success...

“You can handle the wheelchair," said the occupational therapist, with a smile intended to make the remark sound like good news, whereas...

“Speech therapy is an art that deserves to be more widely known. You cannot imagine the acrobatics your tongue mechanically performs in...

“Once, I was a master at recycling leftovers. Now I cultivate the art of simmering memories.” - Jean-Dominique Bauby Jean-Dominique Bauby...

“Does it take the harsh light of disaster to show a person’s true nature?” - Jean-Dominique Bauby Jean-Dominique Bauby quote from The...

“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...

“Far from such din, when blessed silence returns, I can listen to the butterflies that flutter inside my head. To hear them, one must be...

“I am fading away. Slowly but surely. Like the sailor who watches his home shore gradually disappear, I watch my past recede. My old life...

“Whereupon a strange euphoria came over me. Not only was I exiled, paralyzed, mute, half deaf, deprived of all pleasures, and reduced to...

In the past it was known as a 'massive stroke' and you simply died. But improved resuscitation techniques have now prolonged and refined...