Tag: aphasia

Lee Ridley, AKA Lost Voice Guy – I’m Only In It For The Parking

There is a big question after reading this book, and I would love to be in on the discussions: will the audiobook for I’m Only In It For The Parking be performed by Adult Voice Graham (the voice of Lee Ridley’s electronic talker) or a Geordie actor? (His inner voice is Geordie.) Or a mixture of the two? (And why is it that Lee Ridley’s voice is, for us, such an important part of him – when he cannot speak?)

Lee Ridley is very funny indeed. Sections of this book had me chuckling out loud. Other sections deal with the … Read more...

John Greenridge – A Stroke Of Misfortune

A Stroke of Misfortune is a self-published book by the husband and carer of a stroke survivor. It is a truly authentic account in that it is the unedited thoughts of John Greenridge, an older professional man who is looking after Margaret, his wife of fifty years, after she fell causing a haemorrhagic brain injury.

The down-sides are many. It is poorly-written, and has not been edited. There are misprints and ambiguous sentences. There are unnecessary repetitions. The story diverges onto the author’s resentments about today’s NHS. The language is sexist and ageist in places. There is copious detail (repeated) … Read more...

Tom Lubbock – Until Further Notice, I Am Alive

Tom Lubbock’s words live on, even after his death in 2011 from a brain tumour. Some of his art criticism was published as Great Works: 50 Paintings Explored (2011) and English Graphic (2012). His journal of the time from his first epileptic fit in 2008, through his two brain operations, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, chronicles his remaining time with his wife Marion and son Eugene, despite a progressive loss of language, and has been published posthumously as Until Further Notice, I Am Alive (2012).

This is all very ironic, since words were disappearing for him, for the tumour in his left … Read more...

Marion Coutts – The Iceberg

Marion Coutts’s memoir covers the final two and a half years between her husband Tom Lubbock’s diagnosis with a brain tumour, and his death in a hospice. During that time Tom progressively, sometimes temporarily, lost aspects of language, while their son Eugene, 18 months when Tom was diagnosed, was experimenting and expanding his language skills.

Coutts’s book should be read in tandem with Lubbock’s own account, Until Further Notice, I Am Alive (published posthumously in 2012). Their varying perspectives clarify times when they have different roles, for example when he is in hospital for his brain operations to debulk the … Read more...

Christy Brown – My Left Foot

My Left Foot is best known now for the film version. Daniel Day-Lewis played Christy Brown, famously staying in role as the adolescent and young adult with cerebral palsy even during breaks in filming.
But originally My Left Foot was Christy Brown’s first published book, to be followed later by Down All The Days, and other novels and poetry. Although it concerns the struggle of a child to find means of communication and then expression, despite the difficulties imposed by an athetoid cerebral palsy, this is much more than an encounter with a neurological condition, an ‘illness narrative’. It … Read more...

Jean-Dominique Bauby – The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly

How can we even imagine what it must be like to have Locked-In Syndrome? Unable to move anything, but still completely conscious and aware. The account by Jean-Dominique Bauby challenges us to make the effort to do exactly that.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly comes in several formats and each have their strengths. There is the book which was a sensation when it was first published in 1997 and which has since been translated into many languages. The French feature film was released in 2007 with an amazing performance by Mathieu Amalric. It is clear from this film that … Read more...

Edwyn Collins, Home Again

At the time of his stroke Edwyn Collins was a singer-songwriter with an international reputation, a founder of Glaswegian band Orange Juice, and with the hit ‘A Girl like You’ to his name. In February 2005 he had two haemorrhagic strokes, followed by neurosurgery, a period of hospital isolation due to MRSA, a time of hospital rehabilitation, and eventually return home in August in time for his 46th birthday. The strokes left him confused, aphasic, unable to read or sing, and with severe weakness and loss of sensation in the right side. Over the next eighteen months of hard work … Read more...

Grace Maxwell – Falling and Laughing: the Restoration of Edwyn Collins

At the time of his stroke Edwyn Collins was a singer-songwriter with an international reputation, a founder of Glaswegian band Orange Juice, and with the hit ‘A Girl like You’ to his name. In February 2005 he had two haemorrhagic strokes, followed by neurosurgery, a period of hospital isolation due to MRSA, and a prolonged time of hospital rehabilitation. Eventually he returned home in August in time for his 46th birthday. The strokes left him confused, aphasic, unable to read or sing, and with severe weakness and loss of sensation in the right side. Over the next eighteen months of … Read more...

Gilbert Vaux: When Lightning Strikes: Life after a Stroke

Gilbert Vaux was a Somerset farmer who experienced a stroke in 1986 when he was 58. When Lightning Strikes is his account of the stroke and his recovery. Its value lies not in polished prose or anything that makes it stand out, but in its very ordinariness – stroke is something that happens, that normal people experience and recover from, partly due to their own determination and partly with the assistance of their family and friends.

Vaux experienced aphasia after his stroke, and decided to tell his story as part of his therapy. When Lightning Strikes is the result. Through … Read more...

Gabrielle Giffords & Mark Kelly – Gabby: a Story of Courage and Hope

Gabrielle Cliffords was an American Congresswoman for Arizona when she was shot in the head in an attempted assassination. Her partner Mark Kelly was an astronaut and flight commander on the Space Shuttle. Given their high level jobs and public personae, their book is inevitably much more than the account of a head injury and its aftermath, including their pre-injury stories, and their life together. But for the clinician, and for the relative of anyone with a severe brain injury, there are some particular important sections. ‘Sunrise’ (chapter 15) is the account of the first few days after the injury … Read more...