A British man who is almost completely paralysed and can only communicate through blinking and tiny head movements has launched his own Twitter account to speak to the outside world.
"Hello, world, I am Tony Nicklinson, I have locked-in syndrome and this is my first ever tweet. #tony,” he said in his first Tweet on the micro-blogging platform on Thursday.
In a touching response, his daughter Lauren followed a few moments later with a message reading: “Hi Dad! Very proud you are managing to work Twitter! See you tomorrow evening. Love Lauren xx”
Nicklinson communicates on the micro-blogging platform with the help of a special computer that tracks his eye movements, reported Gizmodo.
As of Saturday noon, he has over 9,000 followers. On his Twitter handle, he describes himself as a "Loving husband and father. Rugby fan. Twitter novice with locked-in syndrome".
The 57-year-old father of two from Wiltshire, UK became completely paralysed after a stroke in 2005.
He currently suffers from locked-in syndrome, a condition in which patients can "think and reason" but don't have any control over voluntary muscles except "those that control blinking and vertical eye movements.
He won the right earlier this year to ask a court to declare that a doctor can end his life. This coming Monday, he is set to ask the High Court to allow a doctor to euthanize him via lethal
injection.
In a personal statement to the court earlier this year, the former rugby player and former high-flying business executive said he was “fed up” with the “indignity and misery” of life, which he calls "dull, miserable, demeaning, undignified and intolerable," according to the BBC.
But for now, his wife Jane is happy her husband has taken to social media as an avenue to share his ideas, no matter how controversial they may seem.
"He has never been one to be shy with what he says, this is something where he can do that," she told the Telegraph.
"We know that there might be people on there who are very vocal about
how they disagree [with him] but we are prepared for that.”
Nicklinson's amazing story will be part of a Channel 4 documentary to air on Monday in the UK, the same day as his court hearing.
Watch a short excerpt here.
