A young Turkish woman suffering from a severe neurological disease which prevents much of her movement has written a book using only her eyes.
Ozlem Ozalkan, 38, went to the hospital 13 years ago due to a loss of power in her hands and was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, which is a neuromuscular disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles.
Over time, her condition got worse and she became unable to use many parts of her body.
She can see, hear and think as normal, but cannot move her body and can only communicate through eye movement.
That is the way how she wrote her first book “Life without a body”.
“This is not a book written in 5-6 months, but a book that took her around three years by touching every letter with her eyes. So, it’s like when an ant is building its house moving materials from one place to another. It is miraculous, a magic,” her brother, Besir Ozalkan, tells.
Appreciating her sister’s efforts on a patient’s bed, he says her struggle proves “what a person can do even while he/she is in bed.”
Speaking of his sister’s book, he adds: “When you read the book, you think about why we exist in this world and what are we supposed to do. There are very good and thought-provoking stories in the book.”
The book has two chapters with the first one including a biography of Ozlem and the second chapter covering her poems.
Ozlem also takes part in many voluntary projects like donating for water wells in Africa. Part of the income to be obtained from her book will also be donated to orphans and some will be spent on building water wells.
However, the device that enables visual writing has lost its function as a result of long-term usage and thus she is asking for support for the renewal of the device.
Source: Nypost
