locked in entry fragment

Nothing too exciting going on here, but I thought I should check in. My POM (Practice of Medicine) exam went fine. The cardiac auscultation questions had mismatched heart sounds and histories + visuals (doh!), so our prof wound up scrapping that whole section. I’m not complaining, as I’m pretty sure I mixed up aortic stenosis vs. regurgitation on one of the questions (not good, I know, but I’ve learned my lesson). 

The other day we saw a patient who suffered a basilar artery stroke and now had locked-in-syndrome. He couldn’t move or speak but was fully conscious and cognitively intact. I was debating whether I’d kill myself if I were in his shoes, and decided that I would not – especially if I had someone like his wife by my side. This woman was really something. I understand she’s had a lot of time to adjust to the situation, but man was she on top of things. She was the type of person who could make things work not matter what, if she wanted them to. And she was so eerily matter-of-fact about everything! About two years ago the man regained a tiny amount of movement in his right index finger, which revolutionized his life. He can now use a special computer hooked up to his wheelchair to type (mostly letter by letter – sort of like a text message w/ predictive text). This allows him to "speak," write, read ebooks, listen to music, even order things from Amazon. Thumbs up for technology.