He thinks about sending out an email newsletter to all of Elle magazine’s employees so that they can read about what happened to him, but then realizes that this would only fuel rumors on the streets of Paris if people found out that one of their editors had become a “vegetable.” In between these thoughts, Bauby gets through sponge baths and tube feedings by imagining luxurious soaks in his tub at home in Paris as well as delicious meals from when he was younger. He also mentions how much he misses having visits from his former partner Sylvie and their children Céleste and Théophile, whom he worries might be scared that their father is now disabled. He writes about some of the other patients who are there longer than him because they have worse problems than being paralyzed. He also describes what it’s like to be stuck in the hospital with limited mobility and time for visitors. The memoir includes memories from before the stroke as well as deepest fantasies about returning to normal life.Īs Bauby spends the summer of 1996 writing his memoir, he reflects on his “locked-in syndrome” which leaves him feeling like he is encased in a heavy diving bell. He spent the summer composing a memoir with the help of an interpreter and speech therapist at Berck-sur-Mer hospital in France. After he awoke from his coma in January of 1996, he was able to communicate only by blinking his left eyelid-the part of the body over which he had any control.
In December of 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed and unable to speak. 1-Page Summary of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Overall Summary
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