Christina’s case (Year 1 Thur.)
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I think that this essay is something that everybody should read. That proves that nothing is given to us forever. I was really surprised that
ilnessa condition like this even exists, and it made me think about this more. I really enjoyed reading thisteksttext because I think I’m more aware now of what is going on with my body. Christina’s reaction wasunderstoodunderstandable because shedoesn’tdidn’t even know, she had something like proprioception before. Life without this must be really hard and she managedthisby using her vision and audition. This had to be really difficult, but she did great. It is definitely not easy to relate to her, I can’t imagine whatwouldI would do without my proprioception. -
I think that human body is very complex and because of that it can be easily damaged. I sympathised with Christina due to the fact that I would not want to be in her shoes. I enjoyed the essay because it was gripping and mysterious because of the fact that psychologists and physiologists were shocked by Christina’s case and they did not know how to help her recover. For me life without the sense of proprioreception would be empty because I would be
dependabledependent on other people and could not feel any touch which is important to me. Christina startedrehabilitatingphysical therapy and tried to live a normal life as if thisdiseasecondition had never happened to her. I think we cannot relate to her because it is a catastrophe which I suppose all of us never survived and we cannot even imagine that. -
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I will copy my previous post :
Referring to Wittgenstein’s quote I can tell that Chrtisina’s case is a very good lesson for all of us. We don’t appreciate things in our life which we deem as something certain, obvious. It’s because we have never lost them. Christina lost something
suchso significant like her sense of proprioception, her body became “blind”. She was paralysed, but at the same time she wasn’t. She felt empty, she felt inhuman, like an animal used during lab experiments. It was tragedy for her that she couldn’t feel the world the same way as always. To this day she is going through this nightmare only because she has lost somethingcertainspecific, something obvious which we don’t notice every day. In my opinion this is the most important thing I learnt from this text – we should appreciate every small thing in our life, because we never know when we lose it… and how painful this loss will be.What is more, I can tell that I enjoy the essey. It’s very good life lesson for all of us. We don’t know what future is waiting for us, so we should enjoy our present life as full as we can. In my opinion life without proprioception is something terrible. Of course you can adapt to it, but your life will never become as it used to be. I admire Christina that she was trying to overcome her issue. Using her concentration and other senses to deal with it had to be exhausting. As far as I’m concerned, relating to Christina is very easy because her problem can occur in everyone’s live, even our own.
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I really enjoyed the essay because of its an unusal and interesting story. It’s hard for me to imagine
livinga life without proprioception, just like it was hard for Christina to describe it. I guess it is possible to live without it but I’m not sure if I could handle it. I think it’s easy to relate to Christina, she was young and healthy, she also had her own plans for life, just like any of us. I think she coped with it asgoodwell as she could and I really admire her for that. I’m glad I could read her story and appreciate simply being healthy. -
I enjoyed the essey very much – I have always been interested in neurology – combined with psychology it is my biggest hobby. The paper whas written very clearly, the author explained a very complicated case in a very nice language, so we could try to understand it better. Beacuse of how rare and serious the condition was I wanted to read more about it – I think the essey should have been a bit longer, contain more infomation.
I think it’s almost impossible to relate to her. It was a rare medical condition, the doctors were shocked and didn’t know what to do – we can’t imagine living without that sense – only people who have lost it can explain how it feels.
with other sensesWe can imagine living withoutthemother senses – like closing our eyes, pretending we’re blind. I can’t imagine living without proprioception – not being able to walk or hold a cup of coffee. After some time she managed to learn how to walk again, but it took all her concentration and she had toput a lot of effordtry very hardin orderto do the simpliest of things. She never returned in to the normal state of life – she adjusted to a new situation, but never fully lived a normal life again -
I think this essay is really touching. Christina’s story is really interesting and it make us think about it. It shows that people are often in a bad situation but they are able to deal with it. It is really motivating. I think life with no proprioception is really hard, she must
seewatch her body all the time to be able to move it. I don’t know if I would be sodeterminateddetermined like her to manage with this problem. I think some people may just give up. -
For me the essay was really interesting and I enjoyed reading it. I agree with Wittgenstein’s quote. I agree that we don’t notice the things that are the most important. I think it’s because we take them for granted and we don’t even imagine lo
osing them. This essay made me realize that I should be more grateful for the things that I take for granted.
I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been for Christina to adjust to the new situation and how hard it is to live without perception. I think she coped really well and tried to live normally. I admire Christina for trying to adjust to this hard situation.Don’t forget about capitalisation, please.
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I am very glad that I read this essay, as I wasn’t aware before of the importance of proprioception and how the lack of it can impact one’s life. The essay was very informative from the psychological point of view, as well as a personal point of view, by describing how Christina felt throughout this process. This was one of many reasons why I enjoyed the essay because the writer guided the reader through the condition and how Christina later handled the situation.
I personally cannot imagine my life without proprioception. I think I would find it hard to adjust my life to the changes and learn new ways to go about my everyday life. Christina’s attitude was very inspiring as she was eager to gain new knowledge about her body. She began to use the sense of sight way more and with that memorize her movements slowly. At first, it was hard, but with time Christina became more aware of her body and how she could retain some of her previous demeanors. Later she was able to walk and go outside to public places, which sometimes was difficult for her, but people tried to be understanding of her situation and support her.
Christina’s outlook made it more precise for me to understand the loss of proprioception. I think it is important not to give up in such cases and look for positives remaining in our lives. With that, her story becomes more relatable for others that may go through similar situations in life.Very well written!
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This essay was smooth to read, it is also touching and for me a little bit emotional. Living without proprioception is something that any words could describe, is like she said living with “no body”. For Christine at first it was very schocking and she was all the time
liyinglying in the bed but after some time she coped with the new situation and never gave up. She used her eyes to do every day activities but she was never able to live like a normal person. Her story is verymotivattinginspiring because she could handlewithsuch aa verydifficult situation andalso had some difficulties withlive in society which didn’t understand her disabillity. -
For me it was touching and very sad, but I still found it really interesting. I have never heard about this kind of disability. I can’t even imagine how she felt, not able to feel her own body. But on the other hand, it was comforting that although she
suffered from the disease like thislived with this disability, she was still able to appreciatedsmall things like sun touch on her skin. It shows that we can find some happiness during hard times, even if it seems impossible. I think that people should read essays like this one, because it shows how important simple things in our lives are. And also that we can not know, what the future will bring us, so we should appreciate every single moment. -
I enjoyed it very much. It was informative and quite interesting. It made me look at my life from a different point of view. Our certainty of all things we have is just an illusion. People think we know everything about our organisms, but Christina’s story tells us that the human
‘sbody is far more complex that we can imagine.
Life without proprioception must be hard. Having to be focused and conscious of what you are doing all the time seems tiring. You can never rest.
Because of the lack of proprioception, Christina started to ‘use’ unconscious feedback by vision. She monitored every movement of her body. I am amazed by her because, regardless of the situation, she was trying to get better and make her life back to normal. She didn’t give up. She survived all difficulties. -
Reading the essey took me a lot of time because of the specialist language. Sometimes it was really hard to understand some of the words. It’s difficult to understand the case without any medical knowledge and all the more it’s hard to grasp the amount of the unbelievable pain that Christina had to get through.
I’ve never thought about living without proprioception because, to be honest, I’ve never heard about it. But now I realize that it’s one of the most important senses. It controls everything. Awareness of having our own body and knowledge where particular parts of the body exactly are make life much easier and we don’t even think about it.
Living without proprioceptionforcemakes us to use vision more oftenand more intensivethan we’re used to. It requires a lot of practice to make moves look natural.
Christina learned how to compensate for the lack of proprioception with vision but I think not everyone could do this because it made us get use to another life, behaviour, change our dreams, goals, habits???. It was a sad story and it’s more traumatic when I think that it happened in real life. It’s impossible to put ourseleves intheChristina’s position.
But after all I enjoyed reading this essey. For me, it was something new, something I’ve never heard of before and I feel that I learned much. -
I think that we should enjoy our daily. We are very lucky to be healthy and to do most of the activities automatically, without a big effort. We have control
lover our own body and this is somethingcommonobvious for us, but for older/ people it can be the biggest dream. -
I think this essay was something I should have read. It made me think about what I have now. I have become more greateful for my health and abilities I have. Also, I think I should start taking care of myself more, becouse no one knows if I will be healthy forever.
I enjoy the essay because it was about an issue I have never wondered about. I think life without proprioception must be very tough, I can’t imagine how I would deal with it if I were in Christina’s place. Thanks to her courage and tenacity, she could have handledwiththe problem, while others might have got depressed. She learned to use othere senses to function normally. I think it’s hard to relate to her, not everyone can imagine life with no proprioception, even if everyone could experience it -
I think that the language used in the text was difficult sometimes, but content
sof the text was verycuriousinteresting. This essay is stirring and itforces people to a deep reflectionmakes people to think more about their lives. It is very hard to imagine our daily?? without having a controllall over our body. This text explains how it?? looks and provides knowledge about living without sences??? I wolud recommend this text to my friends because it helps to enjoy simple things in our lives, for example the fact that we can controllour body. -
It was really interesting. I really liked the essay, it was well written and entertaining by its uniqueness. I think I would fight like Christina for having a normal life but I can’t imagine how depressed she was because of losing her proprioception in the beggining. Christina compensated for the loss of prioprioception by vision. For example, when she looked at her arm she was able to control its movement. Her story made me wonder what I would do in her situation and the case was so strange and exceptional that I wanted to read more and more. I can say that this text made me realize that we don’t think about something, we already have, until
lwe lose it. I alsofeeledfelt pain of not treating her like people who need some understanding or help because she don’t look like other people or aren’t showing special appearance like people who have some kind of disability, like blind people. I myself have a disability and it’s not much visible because it concerns muscles (they are really weak, especially in legs). People don’t think about something that is inside of other humans. If it is a disability or something else and they don’t think about what is inside of them most of the time. They think they will be healthy all of their lives for the rest of their lives but nobody knows what is going to happen and I think they are just afraid of thinking that something can be hidden and still exists. Christina’s approach made me believe that we should be positive in our lives when we can.I felt pain of not treating her like people who need some understanding or help because she don’t look like other people or aren’t showing special appearance like people who have some kind of disability, like blind people –> It was painful for me that people didn’t understand or help her only because she didn’t look more like them and her disability was unlike any other, such as the loss of vision.
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I admire Christina for her effort to learn how to function all over again, despite possible yearning the old thriving life and a must
todesignate her a new identity – to face what it means not to feel her body anymore, despite the rational knowledge that it exists and functions physiologicallyfunctions. It’s unbelievable how she just managed to trust herself and believe in gradually building her reality again,althoughdespite her own and the surrounding inability to understand her state and experiences.
I enjoyed the essay mostly because it provoked me to realize what life would be like without some obvious element of not even social, but personal existence, and even more for revealing what it means to cope with such a loss. What a tremendous (but still human ?) effort, hope and especially patience it requires to believe the loss is not the end, a confidence a person has enough strength to rework it and that of the loss doesn’t mean deprivation of personal value, in spite of social incomprehension or moments of collapse.
I think it was a moving and tangible description of a severe suffering and slow process of finding a way of getting out of it. I find it allowing to sympathize with Christina and imagine one’s own fight with such a challenge. Personally, at present I can’t imagine myself going through something like Christina. I guess I would be just like the rest of the patients mentioned in the essay who just stick to any reassurance of medicament supposed to improving their state (like the pyridoxine treatment) and I would stampede to any illusions of bringing back a mock of past life instead of fighting to accept the loss and learn to live in the new reality. -
I enjoyed the essay, because it tells a remarkable story of experiences that I’ve never heard of. But I think the essay doesn’t just tell a story about Christina’s loss of proprioception. It touches interesting subjects, like the importance of the ‘hidden’ things – our senses that are key to understanding and getting to know the world and our environment. I realised how many things I take for granted, from myself, my plans for the future, my body and my abilities, to human connection, my loved ones and their health. I tried to imagine myself in Christinas’s place and it shocked me how tough and difficult the situation would be for me. The consequences of the loss of proprioception are so huge – it’s like your whole world turns upside down. It seems to me that proprioception shouldn’t be called ‘the sixth sense’ but ‘the first sense’… but maybe we shouldn’t label or grade our senses. Such experiences may be different for everybody.
It’s hard to relate to Christina. Even though her story is touching, sad and quite shocking, her way of dealing with this loss is amazing and inspirational.-
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I think it’s hard to decide. Maybe it’s a little bitter-sweet, because Christina managed to fight so many obstacles and difficulties that she had to face, yet she couldn’t help the fact that she was still disembodied. Unfortunately, at the end of the story there were still numerous troubles ahead of her, including the trauma and all of mental and physical problems.
On the bright side, she chose to fight the disability and kept on learning to live a completely new life. I think she could be proud of her perseverance and everything that she had accomplished. Nevertheless, even if I said that there was a happy ending to this story, it’s only from my perspective. I’m not sure if she would say this. Maybe it’s not that black and white, maybe it’s more complex and there’s just no simple answer. I think that this is how the essay ends – both happily and sadly.-
A bitter-sweet ending, that’s how I see it as well. Of course it would have been easy for Sacks to give the essay a happy ending. Christina went through hell but got out of there. He could have admired her and her struggle with her limitations and the readers would have easily accepted it. Instead, he preferred to show her life was it was – tolerable, sometimes pleasant and rewarding, but also misreable.
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I`m glad I could
toread this essay. It reminds us that not everything is given to us forever, that we have to enjoy every moment of life, to be gratefull. I also learnt that despite adversity wecan notcannot/shouldn’t give up.I can
t imagine life without proprioception, because how can we live without feeling ourselves? I admire Christina and everybody who suffer from this condition. I dont think Christina ever compensated for the lack of proprioception. Of course she adapted to her new life, accepted her condition and tried to stay positive but it was a difficult and a long process for her.I don`t think I can ever relate to her. She had a rare condition, I can only imagine how she felt. Only people who had this condition can truly understand what
isit is like but I learnt to be more understanding, caring and to appreciate everything in my life. -
It must be some kind of nightmare, waking up one morning without feeling your own body/without proprioception. What scares me more, if proprioception is like the eyes of the body, and it fails – we can compensate for it by using vision, but what would happen if we were actually visually impaired? Reading a text like this should remind
sus about the value of health. On the other hand, being permanently aware of every single process taking place in one’s body would be extremely overwhelming. In that case, being „unable to notice something because it is always before one’s eyes” may be nothing else but the brain’s way to prevent an overload. -
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The essay was quite interesting to me. Christina’s story is scary and unreal at once, cause I can not imagine myself being not able to fully control my body. In my opinion her life turned into horror after she lost her proprioception. If I were her, I do not think I could handle it. I really admire that she wanted to control her body again, even if all the movements was some kind of unnatural automatic pose. Eventually Christina learnt all the things she needs to live like a normal person, the difference is that she had to be extremely vigilant all the time.
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At first I couldn’t imagine what it is like to not feel my body and I didn’t understand what
isproprioception is in a relatable way. After discovering Christina’s disability to, for example, grab an item without looking at her hand and feeling the movement at the same time, it was more clear to me.
The most interesting and moving thing for me was the fact that Christina enjoyed an open window in the car, because she could feel the air on her body. People with well-working proprioception would just drive and not appreciate this feeling as much as she did, I think.
It was (or it still is) such an effort for Christina to live like this. She had to be very strong mentally and physically – also because she was the only one who lived with this case.
I enjoyed the essay, though its vocabulary was sometimes too hard for me. It made me think about my body and my spine. I’m sitting in front of my notebook right now and when I’m thinkingthinkof proprioception, I am also thinking about my spine, which is handling my body all the time.
Also, I was thinking about Christina’s face. She wasn’t able to look at it, because nobody is ?? (maybe a mirror could help her). She also couldn’t “look at her voice” ??. That’s why I think it remained kind of lifeless.
I think I have a question: Can having no proprioception be compared to a situation when an infant can’t sit by itself until it learns how to do it? Do they share the same feeling? (I’m aware of the fact that the child learns how to sit while a person with no proprioception cannot. – edit: cannot learn like a person with proprioception, but can learn in their own way)
PS. I’m sorry for my nickname – angczw stands for Angelika Czwargiel, my full name.-
Hi Angelica, before I try to answer your question, I’d like to ask you two – what do you mean by saying “She wasn’t able to look at it because nobody is” and “She also couldn’t ‘look at her voice'”?
Infants cannot sit unassisted because they lack good head control and control over their bodily motions. I don’t think their inability to sit up can be compaired to a lack of proprioception.-
I’m sorry that “She wasn’t able to look at it, because nobody is (maybe a mirror could help her). She also couldn’t “look at her voice” ” sentences were not clear.
This is what I meant by that: People can’t look at their faces with their own eyes. The only way to see your face is to look at the mirror or at a thing that is able to reflect it. We can look at our hand, for example, because it can be placed in front of our eyes. So I was wondering how Christina could control her facial expressions while she couldn’t look at her face the same as she could look at her arm/hand while she was moving. Looking at a body part was helpful for her to control her movement.
“She wasn’t able to look at it (the face), because nobody is (able to look at their faces too, because of what I typed above)”. So I was wondering how Christina managed to control her facial expressions – smiling, being sad etc.
Secondly, the sentence: “She also couldn’t “look at her voice””. People can’t see their voices, they can only hear them. Maybe instead of using a method that looking at a body part helps her to control it she swapped it with hearing, when it comes to voice. So maybe hearing her voice could help her to stabilize it, adjust it to the situation.
I thought that her face and her voice remained lifeless (from my first reply: “That’s why I think it remained kind of lifeless.”), because she couldn’t look at them, so she couldn’t control them and bring them to life the same as she did with her legs, arms.
I am always incomprehensible when it comes to comment on a topic. I hope it’s more clear now. If it’s not I will try to explain it more and more.Also, thank you for your answer. I forgot about their “lack of good head control”. Now I understand.
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I had various feeling about this text. At first I felt sorry for Christina and her condition but then I was scared that something like this
could happenedmay happen to all of us because she had done nothing wrong and still she became ill. For me the article was very interesting because Icouldn’t guessdidn’t know that there can be adiesasecondition like this. It was fascinating that beforethegoing to hospital she was doing well and she lived with it??. On the other hand I hated the fact that she couldn’t be healthy again. So when I read it I felt awful for this woman and that part made me sad.
It is unreal for me that I could not haveacontrol over my body. I’m keen on sport sopossibility to notnot being able do it is my worst nightmare. I think that Christina was a tough woman because she reallydonedid well with this whole situation. Of course it took her a lot of time to start living a relatively normal life again but in my opinion everybody has a different time for recovery and for me the most important thing is the result- living our life again.She compansated for her lack of proprioceptors with her eyes. It means that whenever she was paying attention and looking for example
onat a hand she could get a cup from a table. Christina workedfor such amount of timeso long that suddenly it became easier.Now she’s being goodShe resumed her life but when the doctors diagnosed her she felt empty, like a person without a body. It was horrible for her to the point that she compared herself to an animal used inalaboratory experiments. As I said, for me it isabovebeyond my imagination how this womencouldfelt like. -
I really enjoyed the essay “The Disembodied Lady”, because it was about a very interesting case that is not common in normal life. I think that life with no proprioception would be very hard because not everyone can learn everything
from the beginninganew. I think it’s very hard to relate to her because none of us had experiencedsomethinganything like this and it would be hard for normal, healthy people to even imagine being in such a situation. Fortunately, she found a way to compensate for the lack of proprioception by using her sense of vision. Herseeingvision became her new greatest ability. It means, that every time she wanted to do something, she had to look at it andeverything was going welland only then she was successful. I truly admire this women and it was good to read about such an interesting case. -
Christina’s case reminds me of “Awakenings”, it’s movie based on Oliver Sacks’s 1973 book of the same title. Watching this film really helps me to understand this text, Christina condition, her mindframe and how she could feel. Without this film, text might be tough to understand because of specific vocabulary. I’d definitely recommend this thought-provoking text for everyone who has leisure time and wants a moment of reflection. I’ll probably read whole book in the foreseeable future because it’s a gripping story about eventful medical case.
I can’t even imagine how hard is life with no proprioception. This text makes me realise how lucky I’m because I don’t have any serious illness. Everyday life must be a real struggle for Christina, her body was “dead”. She said that she feels her body is blind and deaf to itself. She’s a real warrior because she didn’t give up. I’d be totally frightened if I were in her situation. I reckon it’s really hard to relate to her because (fortunately) probably none of us will be in the same situation.
It is my belief that people are ungrateful and they usually don’t appreciate things, they start to esteem them only if they lose them. For example, we don’t think on a daily basis how thankful we are for our great vision, family members or friends. Many things are around us so we think that it’s obvious that they will be here “forever”. We start to notice and appreciate them when they are gone. We can’t forget what life is all about and everyone need to be thankful for everything because one day we might wake up without something. Christina’s case is phenomenal because she had almost nothing. -
I have to admit that I am struck by this story, because it shows how our bodies are complicated and mysterious. It also shows that we take our lives for granted, but the truth is that we don’t know what will come next, we can lose everything at the moment.
I’m impressed by Christina’s acts and behaviour. I can’t even imagine how difficult must be life without proprioception, but in my opinion she handled it really well. She was fighting bravely for a “normal” life. Although people were looking at her like a freak and she had worse days, she was always bold and gutsy. She is very inspiring. -
This essay made a really good impression on me. I think it’s very interesting, and Christina’s case is something that would interest many people. I enjoy reading about surprises hidden in our bodies and minds, so i liked that. Prioperception is important in our lives (and before i didn’t know that something like that exsist!) so it’s good to know that. I think that life without prioperception would be really hard, because when we are healthy everything comes naturally. I can’t imagine myself losing prioperception, that would be a nightmare!
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In my opinion, the article was very moving and important. I have never heard of such a disease before. Reading the article, I was focused and tried to put Christina in place. I don’t think I would be able to put myself in her place and feel what she did. It is impossible. I can’t imagine how difficult this disease is, the loss of proprioception. A sense of your own body, and your own personality. I was absolutely shocked by the lack of understanding and sympathy from society. That was also highly difficult experience that Christina had to face. Despite this, Christina didn’t lose hope and took up the fight. She was trying so hard to live a life, that she used to live before. She was a fighter. I believe her story is an inspiration for many people.
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Christina’s story was really interesting for me and it was the first time I read about such disorder. I think that life with no proprioception would be incredibly difficult as Christina’s case shows us. I would not be able to control my body the way I did for my whole life. I would have to get used to new techniques of moving, sitting, eating, working – basically everything. It’s like becoming a baby again. But the difference is: when the time goes by, babies grow and acquire the ability to control their bodies, but people with no proprioception – never acquire it.
Christina’s story also emphasizes that people aren’t educated enough in this topic. We don’t know how to treat people with no proprioception, usually we don’t even know that such disorder exist. As I said, it was the first time I heard about such disease. I think that people should be informed more about it such as about blindness, deafness and other kinds of disabilities.-
Susana, if you’re interested how people with no proprioception learn to control their bodie, see this video.
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Thank you so much! I watched this video and I think it’s really interesting and moving. I can’t imagine how difficult it is to control every move. Also I didn’t know that people with no proprioception even have to learn how to gesture – the activity that is so natural to me!
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I think that the article was very interesting. I didn’t know it is possible to lose
yourproprioception. I can’t imagine life without feeling my own body. She moved thanks to her vision, which replaced the proprioception. But the beginnings were really hard. She couldn’t imagine her life without the most important sense. -
I enjoy reading the essay because Christina’s case is really uncommon. I did not know about proprioception and that we can lose it. We have heard about various disabilities so far, but this is something new, different and really interesting. I cannot imagine life without proprioception. It seems like a basic ability without which we are not able to move our body consciously. I think that Christina could be an inspiration for everyone. She shows how to cope with difficulties and fight for a better life. She was obviously devastated but she was trying as hard as she could.
I think it is not easy to relate to her. We can e.g. close our eyes to feel like a blind person but we cannot find out what life is like without proprioception. Furthermore, I noticed people’s behaviour in this essay. It always irritates me when people judge another human without even trying to know him. This also happened to Christina. Due to the fact that her affliction was not immediately noticeable, people thought she was a fool or drunk. It is so sadin our societyhow easy it is to judge someone. -
Hi, Agatha. Do you know another person with a disability that could be a role model for other people?
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I think the most known is Nick Vujicic, who has been born without arms and legs. Nevertheless, he did not give up. Now, he has a family, travels around the world and inspires millions of people. We also know distinguished scientist, Stephen Hawking. In Poland there is successful athlete, Joanna Mazur, who is blind or handball player without an eye, Karol Bielecki. They are active in sport despite their disabilities. These amazaing people show us, that limits do not excist. It is all in our hands.
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In contemporary world we have more and more possibilities to learn and gain knowledge about human body and health. But it is sad, that we rarely use our options and don’t read science articles. Unfortunately, I must admit that I was one of that person, but the essay The Disembodied Lady changed my point of view and now I have strong will to learn more about neurology and different aspects of functioning of human body and brain.
Essay describes the story of young, active woman and mother – Christina, who all of sudden lost the proprioception. A sense, which is responsible for self-movement and body position. All of us can without a problem list of five senses (vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell). But there is more than that. Proprioception is described as the “eyes of the body”. It is necessary for body movement. Without it, we are not only not able to walk, dance and jump but even we can’t hold body in sitting position.
The story of Christine shows us, that we can’t be sure of another day. Even though the heroine of essay was active and overall healthy before, she became ill. What’s worse nobody knew what was wrong and at the beginning doctors claim that it’s only hysteria. She was diagnosed later. And the diagnosis changed her entire life, because she had to learn again how to walk, how to move. She did not have any feelings of her body and had to use her eyes to be able to do the simplest movements. For me it’s hard to imagine how she felt. I can close my eyes and be blind for a moment, I can cover my ears and be deaf, but how can I stop feeling my body?
Essay is also a great example how strong can be human will and that our body can adapt to every situation. Often, when we loose one sense another one take over its function and became stronger. In Christina’s case it was vision. Finally, she was able to move again, but she has never fully recovered. She mentioned that she had very little understanding from other people, who accused her of simulating disease or even being just drunk. I think, we should be more aware of other people’s condition and be more emphatic. Many times we tend to underestimate how other feels. After the lecture of the essay I decided to pay more attention and support for people with disabilities. And for sure I will never doubt a person, who tell me about their rare conditions.
Although, “The Disembodied Lady” was an essay full of medical vocabulary and sometimes difficult to understand without further research I strongly recommend reading this text and draw your own conclusions.-
Alexandra, I agree with all the points you’ve made, but I wouldn’t say that other people accused Christina of feigning a disease. The loss of proprioception is rare (which is a good thing) and it affects only a small number of people, so we shouldn’t be surprised that some (if not most) of them are unaware of this condition/disability.
I’m glad that you’ve taken an interest in neurology 🙂
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I find this essay very interesting, but I am not sure I enjoyed it. It’s becouse I can’t imagine life with no proprioception. To be honest I find it really scary. It’s definetely not easy to relate to her. I this essay it’sworth reading, and Christina’s case impressed me. It’s not easy to handle with no proprioception, and I am not sure I actually could handle without it, that’s why I am impressed by this case.
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I really enjoy the essay because I’ve never heard about this disease. I think life with no proprioception is really hard, I can’t imagine what I would do if I were in this situation. Christina was diagnosed with the loss of proprioception and in one moment her whole world
has fallenfell apart. She was depressed but after some time she was ready to fight. Personally, I admire her beacause she tried to go back to her “normal life”, which is really hard and even impossible. She had to learn almost everything all over again. She compensated for the loss of proprioception with her sight but we could only imagine how difficult it was.Suprising to me was thatWhat was surprising to me was that Christina had a dream about not feeling her body and then that “dream” came true. That was so scary but also quite interesting. I wonder how Christina’ssubconsciousunconscious mind knew what would happen. -
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It’s hard to compare both disabilities, because they are completly different. Ben lost his sight as a child so it was easier to him to learn how to live without eyes. While Christina was 27,when the doctor diagnosed her with loss of proprioception – she was a mother of two kids so I think it was harder for her to deal with.
In my opinion, both disabilities are really difficult . Until now I couldn’t imagine my life without the sense of sight, but Christina’s case showed me that the loss of proprioception is even worse. They both had to spend a lot of time and patience to learn many things again.-
Yes, you’re right. I also think that Chritina had to face bigger challenges. Ben was in a privileged position because his life wasn’t dramatically affected by his disability – he could ride a bike, play video games and he attended a mainstream school. Besides, his condition was understood by other people. Actually, he became a sort of celebrity. Christina wasn’t understood and due to this and her condition she was socially excluded.
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Indeed. People are very critical even if they don’t know the reason of someone’s behaviour. They judge by appearance or other charasteristics and that’s why many people like Christina are socially excluded.
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Well, yes. My friend had a serious accident in childhood, so her face is a little deformed and she has scars on it. Many people avoid her, some people laugh. When we were at elementary school she was very introverted, she didn’t want to leave the house because of kids who treated her differently than others. Thanks to the help of her family and a psychologist she learned how to deal with it. However, not everyone can get such help, and that’s why it’s important not to judge others.
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I think yes, they accepted her as she is. However I think that in new places, meeting new people she can experience the same. But now she’s a strong women who likes herself. And now her life motto is a quote from “The Little Prince”: “One sees well only with the heart.The essential is invisible to the eyes.” So I guess that she learnt that personality is more important that appearance.
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That’s wise. Have you heard about Katie Stubblefield? If no, this article could be of interest to you.
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