Dr. Iain Corness
(With the subject of this book being medical, the review was done by Dr.
Iain Corness)
If you want an uplifting story, then “In the blink of an eye” is probably
one of the most dramatic personal fights against enormous odds that you will
ever read. Author Peter Coghlan finishes the sometimes harrowing tale with
the caveat “Remember, miracles can happen.”
Coghlan was a young British lad, ex-Army, a fit bricklayer, who was suddenly
struck down with a massive stroke, ending up in what is called the
“Locked-in” syndrome. This is a condition in which a patient is aware and
awake but cannot move or communicate verbally due to complete paralysis of
nearly all voluntary muscles in the body except for the eyes. So for all
intents and purposes, the patient is in a coma, but is actually awake, but
‘locked in’ his or her own body.
This
was Peter Coghlan’s situation. Active one minute and suddenly the next
minute a living corpse.
He wrote the book, as a chronicle of his rehabilitation, hoping that it
might stimulate others in a locked-in diagnosis.
The book is written with alternating chapters between recollections of his
past life (which included surviving a Hodgkins Lymphoma cancer against all
odds) and the realization of the enormity of being locked-in in his current
life.
Since the casual bystander can only see a non-responsive body, people will
then tend to disregard the “unconscious” victim. Coghlan describes
overhearing people talking about him with, “I can only get snatches of their
conversation, words like basilar, pons and, more frighteningly, ‘vegetative’
and ‘locked-in’. When I hear these terms, their voices get lower and I can
tell they don’t want me to hear them. Only they don’t know if I CAN hear.”
He goes on, “Some nurses are really good, chatty and pleasant, but one or
two act as though I didn’t exist, not even bothering to look me in the eye,
as though I was just some object, an animal carcass with no feelings. But I
can feel; I do feel; I feel everything, from the aching of my head to the
tortuous spasms in my twisted hands and feet.”
He describes “ … hating the nights, long, silent deathly nights when I don’t
know whether I’ll survive until the dawn. You’d think when you can’t move
that nothing could happen - but that’s not true. When you can’t move,
anything could happen. My trachea gets blocked so I can’t breathe. Yet for
sheer unmitigated horror, nothing, nothing I’ve ever encountered compares
with being locked-in! Nothing even comes close.”
However, he managed through perseverance, to walk out of the hospital six
months after admission, holding the hand of his fiancée (whom he later
married in Thailand). “For anyone who’s going through this, I can only
encourage you to stay strong, be positive and never give up hope. And, as a
former atheist, I have come to believe in God and in anything that gives you
hope and comfort. Remember, miracles can happen!”
“In the blink of an eye” is available through Amazon.com as an e-book or
paperback. I can wholeheartedly recommend this book. Reading it is a
humbling experience.