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I listened to the whole podcast about Martin. His family never gave up on him. He was non-responsive for more than 11 years. For most of that time, he could
by wombatmobile 6y ago
I listened to the whole podcast about Martin.
His family never gave up on him.
He was non-responsive for more than 11 years.
For most of that time, he could hear and understand.
Because he couldn't communicate, his life was a joyless experience.
Sometimes his carers were careless with him, hurting him. He couldn't respond. One nurse abused him. He couldn't respond.
After many years, his mother told him she wished he would die.
He learned how to disengage from his thoughts. Just go to black. He became good at that. It was joyless. "A very dark place to find yourself because in a sense you are allowing yourself to vanish."
After years in this very dark place, one day he decided he'd had enough.
He began to re-engage with his thoughts. Over months, he learned to tell the time by tracking the angle of the sun's rays in the room over the day.
Still, he couldn't move his body.
They'd sit him in front of the TV to watch Barney. He hated Barney.
One day he heard Whitney Houston on the radio, singing The Greatest Love of All. When she sang "No matter what they take from me, they can't take away my dig-ni-ty" he thought to himself, "Wanna bet?"
He embraced darkness and endured his own thoughts, moving through them, gaining self-understanding.
Then, after a while, something changed and he could blink his eyes. I don't know how long that took, or what the moment was like when he first made contact again. The podcast doesn't detail that moment. It just skips to when he could squeeze hands.
His mother bought him a joystick. It took him a year to learn how to use it.
He asked for coffee and forged ahead. Within two years he got a job with the government. A nurse told him she had a problem with her computer. He fixed the computer. Soon, he quit his job and started a web design company. He met a woman over Skype. They hit it off and got married when he was 32 years old.
His face hurts from smiling so much.
- agumonkey 6y agoholy shit I'm aching in forms I never knew before add this man to 'patience' in the dictionnary
- forgotmypw17 6y agoMy grandfather was on life support for less than a year, and they were talking about unplugging him. Then he recovered and lived another ~10 years.
- pm2222 6y agoWas it in the US, what year and cost?
- forgotmypw17 6y agoIt was in the U.S., less than 20 but more than 10 years ago. I don't know anything about the cost.
- BugWatch 6y agoIt's possible the previous commenter's "coAst" got autocorrected to "cost".
- e40 6y agoI listened to the whole podcast about Martin. Which one? I'd like to give it a listen. Thanks.
- Cactus2018 6y agoInvisabilia Pod Cast https://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/375928581/locked-man https://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/375928581/locked-man
- hodgesrm 6y agoThis is an amazing story. It's like a variation on the Count of Monte Christo, leaving out the revenge part.
- h0l0cube 6y agoHe also did a TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/martin_pistorius_how_my_mind_came_back_to_life_and_no_one_knew https://www.ted.com/talks/martin_pistorius_how_my_mind_came_... There's also another good article, just recently published with a few extra details: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/ten-years-with-locked-in-syndrome/6443664 https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/t... > The podcast doesn't detail that moment. It just skips to when he could squeeze hands. "That all changed when one of his carers, Virna van der Walt, noticed that he could use very small eye movements to respond to things she said." > He met a woman over Skype. "In 2008, Pistorius met his wife, Joanna. She was his sister’s flatmate; they were introduced to each other over Skype."