The ability of human beings to live a purposeful, worthwhile life under the most difficult of circumstances is amazing.Unborn babies are aborted because of trivial physical handicaps - yet a young girl with three limbs amputated - after meningitis, as I recall - was playing happily a few months later as though nothing had happened.
One of the most difficult conditions to cope with must be locked-in syndrome, where people are mentally aware but unable to speak or move, in chronic cases, except to blink their eyes. French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby, who was able to move just one eye, dictated a book a letter at a time by blinking to indicate the letter he wanted as friends recited the alphabet. The book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, received rave reviews.
A recent survey of chronic locked-in patients in France - 65 of them - showed that seven per cent were interested in euthanasia. Ninety-three per cent were not. Only 28 per cent were unhappy.
The Daily Mail found a 27-year-old locked-in patient near Stockport. Michelle Wheatley, who has two young children with her partner Rick Blease, was feeding one of the children breakfast two-and-a-half years ago when she started to scream with pain and have fits. She was taken to intensive care and put into an induced coma.
A neurologist diagnosed a brain stem stroke, decided the damage was irreversible and said Michelle would die. She is in a nursing home, fed by a tube into her stomach and fitted with a tracheotomy tube to drain fluid from her chest.
She opens her eyes for "yes" and closes them for "no," and "speaks," like the Frenchman, by blinking to choose a letter at a time. Asked if she is happy, she opens her eyes wide. Yes, she's happy. Asked if she has ever wanted to die, she closes her eyes tight. Never? She closes her eyes again.
"Nobody should say that another person's life isn't worth living," she spells out. "You don't know, until it happens to you, how you'll feel.
"I do feel happy most of the time. I enjoy music, films, seeing the children. Most of the time, life is good. We all have our off days, don't we?"
"She's determined to get well again," says Rick. "And already we are seeing massive improvements. Right from the start I refused to accept she would die. I knew she'd improve and she has. The children know their mummy is very poorly - but they also know she'll come home."
