5TH SEPTEMBER 2002
Ram,
Thanks for including me in the Vad club. I am Shaw Jennings -- a physican who suffered a dissection of the left vertebral artery from a minor whiplash. I was Locked in. My personal history can be read on Ramboaus' Vad club website. I also have written a book about my experiences called "Locked In Locked Out".
Thanks for including me in the Vad club. I am Shaw Jennings -- a physican who suffered a dissection of the left vertebral artery from a minor whiplash. I was Locked in. My personal history can be read on Ramboaus' Vad club website. I also have written a book about my experiences called "Locked In Locked Out".
I don't interact often on the Internet but when I do I'll check you people out.
Take Care
Dr. Shawn Jennings
( Note: Unfortunately when the VAD Club web site went down I lost Dr Shawn Jennings personal history as shared by him. VAD Club Members lost touch with Shawn too after he moved to Canada. Ram)
( Note: Unfortunately when the VAD Club web site went down I lost Dr Shawn Jennings personal history as shared by him. VAD Club Members lost touch with Shawn too after he moved to Canada. Ram)
A family doctor for twenty years until a brainstem stroke at the age of 45 forced him to retire. He was locked in after the stroke--he was only able to move his eyes for four months. He wrote a memoir about this experience called "Locked In Locked Out". It is used in the nursing curriculum at The University of New Brunswick and Queen's University.
He resides at home with his wife in Rothesay, New Brunswick, Canada.
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Amazing what you can find on Internet if you persist:(2014)
After graduating from Dalhousie Medical School, Shawn Jennings spent an active 20 years as a successful family doctor. Then suddenly, one spring day in 1999, Dr. Jennings was suddenly unable to eat, speak to his family, or move anything but his eyes.
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Amazing what you can find on Internet if you persist:(2014)
By Rebecca Schneidereit - March 11, 2009
After graduating from Dalhousie Medical School, Shawn Jennings spent an active 20 years as a successful family doctor. Then suddenly, one spring day in 1999, Dr. Jennings was suddenly unable to eat, speak to his family, or move anything but his eyes.
Journalist Jean-Dominque Bauby describes what life is like after suffering a massive stroke in the book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The film version will be screened on Monday, followed by a panel discussion featuring Shawn Jennings, who also suffered a brainstem stroke.
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“I had a brainstem stroke,” says Dr. Jennings. “I was left ‘locked-in.’ That means everything in your body is paralyzed. You can’t talk. You can’t eat. You can’t move… (but) your brain knows everything.”
Dr. Jennings was 45. Since then he has been in slow, continuous recovery. “I’m able to eat now, I’m able to talk,” he says in a phone conversation. “I’m in a power wheelchair. I can move my left arm to eat… this happened 10 years ago. I may have stayed (totally) locked-in for about four months.” It was, however, two years before he could speak clearly enough to be understood.
While he fought to reclaim his body, Dr. Jennings also exercised his mind. “I started writing about a year after my stroke… I had read The Diving Bell and the Butterfly…” (Jean-Dominique Bauby’s memoir of locked-in syndrome, dictated one eyelash-flutter at a time.) “The nurse mentioned to me ‘you should write a memoir’ because she thought that my experience of being a doctor would be unique.”
The writing process was physically therapeutic, helping Dr. Jennings regain the use of his hand. However, his past in the medical field proved a challenge to more personal writing. “I had to stop writing like a doctor. That was a challenge, not to slip into medical lingo. I wanted to keep it in layman’s terms… writing a memoir, you write from your own experiences, in your own name.”
Dr. Jennings’ book, Locked In Locked Out, was published in 2002. Twice reprinted, it is now a textbook at the University of New Brunswick and at Queen’s University.
Shawn Jennings continues to write—when he can find the time. “I’ve been so busy with committees and my community; I don’t have a lot of time to write.”
Highly involved in volunteer activities, including the Stroke Network, Dr. Jennings also serves as president at the Canadian Association of Physicians with Disabilities and on New Brunswick’s Premier’s Council on the Status of Disabled Persons.
“During the mornings, that’s mostly dedicated to exercise… the afternoon, that’s mostly devoted to lots of work with committees. If I have a moment or two, I’ll write. And in the evenings, that’s my leisure time.”
Dr. Jennings regained a measure of mobility. But locked-in syndrome can be a life sentence. Not all patients can undergo even a limited recovery, and some will remain locked-in for the rest of their lives – especially traumatic given the lack of public awareness of the syndrome.
On Monday, March 16, Novel Tech Ethics will give a public screening of the recent film version of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, with a panel discussion to follow.
Shawn Jennings has been asked to sit on the panel. “This is put on by (Novel Tech Ethics),” he explains, “And they want to reach the public… you know, I talk to many people, and I usually tell them my main message—talking about my turn to acceptance and finding happiness after a life-changing event.
But this will be the first time, I imagine, they’ll be talking about the ethical questions surrounding the state of being locked-in. And so this is completely new for me.”
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly will be shown at 7 p.m. on Monday, March 16, at the Halifax Infirmary, QEII Royal Bank Theatre at 1796 Summer Street. Seating is limited.
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Locked in
Few of the stories I’ve heard have been as moving as one told by Dr Shawn Jennings. Dr Jennings was the keynote speaker at the New Brunswick Annual Scientific Assembly, which was held in early April in Miramichi, NB. He related the tale, with humour and compassion, of his own experience with illness. In his mid-40s, after 2 decades of busy family practice, he suffered a devastating hemorrhagic brainstem stroke due to a vertebral artery dissection, an event that left him in a “locked in” state. He recounted his journey from only being able to move his eyes, all the while being acutely aware of everything that was going on around him, to his gradual and miraculous recovery. His story is told poignantly in his written account of his experiences, Locked In Locked Out.1 I was fortunate enough to be able to ask him a question at the end of his presentation—it had, after all, been the first time in the 10 years since his stroke that he had spoken to a large group of family doctors. I wondered if there was something he’d want to pass on to us, something he had gleaned as a professional through this horrific experience that he wished he had known before. I thought that his answer might include insights about compassion and patience, which were no doubt a large part of his recovery. His response surprised me. He said that one of his biggest regrets about his former family practice was that he hadn’t spent enough time with his patients, and that the fee-for-service payment environment in which he had worked had been a barrier to providing the type of service that he now saw as important.
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Dr. Shawn Jennings graduated from Dalhousie Medical School in 1978 and spent an active 20 years as a successful family doctor. In 1999, at age 45, a brainstem stroke forced him to retire. Since then, he has been very active as an advocate for disabled persons: he is the past president of the Canadian Association of Physicians with Disabilities; he sat on the Premier’s Council on the Status of Disabled Person for 10 years; he is an active member of the Kennebecasis Valley Committee for Disabled Persons and is involved in affordable housing ventures for disabled persons and seniors in the same area.
In 2007, Dr. Jennings was awarded the Dr. Garfield Moffatt Medal by the NB Medical Society for excellence in patient care, continuing medical education and community leadership. He was also awarded the Paul Harris Fellow from KV Rotary in 2011 for community involvement. Dr. Jennings’ first book, Locked In Locked Out, was published in 2002 and is now being reprinted for a third time; it serves as a textbook at the University of New Brunswick. This was followed in 2010 by a novel, The Dove’s Eye. Dr. Jennings resides in Rothesay with his wife Jill; they have three children.
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Dear Shawn,
If you ever get to see this Blog and read your story please contact me
Ramboaus
29th August 2014
