I posted a couple days ago about Rom Houben, the Belgian man who was misdiagnosed as being in a coma for the last couple decades. Since then, the story has taken another interesting turn. Hauben described his experience to German magazine Der Spiegel using a method called “facilitated communication”, a method by which an assistant holds the individual’s hand and helps the individual type out messages on a keyboard. His recounting is quite vivid:

I became the witness to my own suffering, as doctors and nurses tried to speak to me and eventually gave up.

Facilitated communication is viewed with skepticism by many because it’s difficult to determine whether the assistant is simply assisting or actually typing out the messages for the individual. Most controlled studies have found facilitated communication to be unreliable and subject to the assistant conscious or unconscious influence. That isn’t to say that Houben isn’t self-aware. But it seems reasonable to wonder how articulate any of us would be after having no social interaction for the better part of a lifetime.

A lot of what we know about the brain is still wrong. We’re discovering more every day about the inner workings of mind and consciousness, but that’s of little consolation to someone like Rom Houben. After being seriously injured in a car accident twenty-three years ago, Houben’s doctors misdiagnosed him as being in a coma even though he continued to be completely self-aware. The misdiagnosis came to light only after a neurologist conducted a comprehensive reassessment that revealed his brain ccontinued to function normally.

I can’t even imagine the frustration and despair that this man must have felt as the years marched on. I can’t imagine all the times he must have been in discomfort or pain and unable to communicate the fact to anyone. I’d be very interested to know what coping mechanisms he developed to deal with such long-term isolation. Once neural implants are perfected, Houben should be first in line to receive one.

Some of you know that I’m a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. It’s one of the better-scripted series to have appeared on television with plenty of wit, depth, and cute women talking smack and kicking ass. It deserves a lot of credit for kicking off the modern pop culture fascination with all things vampire. Which brings me to the Twilight series. Now, I haven’t read any of the books or seen any of the movies, but from all the reviews I’ve read of Meyers’ oeuvre, it seems like pretty weak tea compared to the Buffy series. A bunch of mopey vampires and a heroine who doesn’t really do anything heroic making googly eyes at each other.

A brilliant mashup of the Buffy and Twilight franchises lays bare the stark differences in how these two fictional universes regard women. Take a guess as to which one takes a more patriarchal view and seems to imply that stalking is perfectly acceptable behavior for hysterically emo guys. And don’t even get me started on a comparison of the dialog. Ick. Just…ick.

According to Intel researchers, I may only have to wait another decade for the brain implant that will give me control of my computer and, before long, much of the civilized world. In 2020, I won’t even be fifty years old yet, still young enough to lead a revolution. I just have to keep my mind sharp until then to ensure I have the necessary mental fortitude necessary to bend the Internet to my will. Time to start my daily regimen of crossword puzzles.

I should also commission someone to mock up my propaganda art. I’m envisioning giant murals of just my face with a third eye in the middle of my forehead. Or is that too over-the-top?

Even though I’m on a vent, my lungs do a pretty good job of keeping themselves clear. It might take me a little longer to cough something up, but I eventually get the job done. On rare occasions, I sometimes need a little assistance in the form of some rigorous chest percussions. It’s a crude but effective method. However, subtler means of maintaining good pulmonary health are now becoming available. The Lung Flute is one of those simple yet ingenious devices that, in retrospect, seem obvious. When an individual blows into the Lung Flute, it creates sympathetic vibrations in the chest cavity that vibrate the hair-like cilia in the lungs. The cilia are responsible for sweeping mucus up to the throat, where it can then be swallowed or spat out.

I’ll probably stick with the occasional chest beating, if for no other reason than to satisfy my masochistic urges. But for people with cystic fibrosis or other pulmonary conditions, the Wand could be quite useful.