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Summary Of Bauby's The Diving And Bell

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In the book The Diving and Bell and The by Jean Dominique Bauby is the editor in chief of French Elle. Jean is a divorced father of two, a son Theophile and daughter Celeste. Jean at one point in time suffered a 20 day coma. He suffered a massive stroke which was later diagnosed as “Lock In Syndrome”. The morning of his stroke Jean was arranged to test drive a BMW and then pick up son to spend time with him over the weekend. Unfortunately both of those never came to past and the opportunity to do so in the future was absolutely gone. Before the incident while driving he understood that his body was not in the right state so the first thought of help that came to mind was his sister Diane who was a nurse. She understood the situation and rushed …show more content…

He reflects on moments of how he is confined to wheelchair and watches his children while their mother pushes him around “hunched in my wheelchair, I watch my children surreptitiously as their mother pushes me down the hospital corridor” (Bauby, pg 64). One of his biggest peeves is how he can no longer enjoy the physical aspects of life even the little things like playing with his children. He reminisces on his life before the accident how he started dieting and exercising losing weight. The way he lost sixty two pounds was not the way he thought it would of been. The accident cause a dynamic physical change that changed his physique severely. Jean went as far back as to his childhood “he would shave his father's face now he the one who needs helped being shaved” (Bauby, pg …show more content…

This is life that we only get one of and for him the physical joy of it has been lost forever. It was a tragic and unfortunate event that led to him losing all aspects of his prior life. He was reduced to a man… a vegetable the only thing he had true control over was his thoughts. Being an athlete I could never imagine that one day I would lose all my abilities to conduct as a human being. Life is nothing short of a blessing that should never be taken for granted. For Jean his ability to even communicate with the outside world using that left eye is a blessing in disguise. It was step for Jean to make this harsh adjustment to his new unexpected life. This man was stripped of every luxury of life. The chances of him contracting a stroke of that severity is just as rare as winning the lottery. This story teaches you to appreciate all that life has to give because you will never know when it could all be taken away from you. Take the opportunities given to you being able to socially interact and communicate with others is one of the biggest aspects of being apart of this

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