Jean-Dominique Bauby was a French magazine editor who suffered a devastating stroke at the age of 43 years old.
He woke up after 20 days in coma and realized he cannot control anything in his body except for his left eyelid. This is called a locked-in syndrome. He had lost 60 lbs in the first 20 weeks in a hospital.
So, instead of giving up on life, he decided to write a book. His helper would recite letters of an alphabet and he would blink when the correct letter was reached.
''One day . . . I can find it amusing, in my 45th year, to be cleaned up and turned over, to have my bottom wiped and swaddled like a newborn's. I even derive a guilty pleasure from this total lapse into infancy. But the next day, the same procedure seems to me unbearably sad, and a tear rolls down through the lather a nurse's aide spreads over my cheeks.''
200,000 blinks and 4 years later, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was completed. Unfortunately, he caught pneumonia and died 2 days after publishing of the book. The book was made into a movie that won multiple international awards.