I watched a movie the other night, Le Scaphandre et le Papillon. It's about Jean-Dominique Bauby, journalist and editor-in-chief of Elle magazine. He suffered a massive stroke that left him with "locked-in syndrome:" he could think, hear, and see, but couldn't move anything but his left eye. Ten days after he finished his memoir (after which the movie was named), he passed away.A few weeks ago, my right arm started to ache. At first I thought it was carpal tunnel, but the symptoms pointed more toward tendonitis. I looked around on Google hoping for an easy cure (something like, "do arm yoga every morning for 15 minutes") but was sorely disappointed when all sources agreed that "the first stage toward recovery" was to "stop the repetitive actions that caused the tendonitis for at least 3 months." How does a computer science PhD student doing an internship at Google stop typing?
Although it's nowhere near the life-altering condition of Jean-Do, I wondered what it would be like if suddenly my life were completely and irreversibly turned around. Like the construction worker who breaks his back in his late 40s, or the medical doctor who goes blind. What if I could no longer type? Or even worse--what if I could type, but I'd be miserable the rest of my life unless I chose not to?
Maybe I'll pull an Angelina Jolie an preemptively become a genetic counselor.
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