Trans Fatty Lives

Trans Fatty lives is a documentary on netflix following Patrick Sean O'brien through his personal journey of living with ALS. I chose to watch this documentary after the ALS lecture in class and spoke to a few classmates that had watched it. This documentary interestingly enough was done by Patrick himself with the help of a crew and some editors. Although he lost control and function of his body his mind was still brilliant, and this film portrays just that.
It was tough seeing some of the struggles that Patrick and his family faced but Patrick didn't let the disease get him down. He described ALS perfectly when he said it's like someone unplugged my brain from my body. Throughout the film you can see the decline in his physical abilities and eventually his body just seems to be an extension of his head with not much of a purpose. The film also shows us how Patrick was able to get his girlfriend pregnant despite his disability and how he admired and loved to watch his son grow. His son is why he made the difficult choice to be placed on a respirator to artificially breath for him because he wanted to play a role in his son's life. This decision was probably made before he realized that his ex would keep his son from him and not even allow him to see his son on father's day. Patrick then stated, "this whole death thing seems to be becoming a little strung out." It's unknown how long Patrick will live being kept alive by a machine but he still participates in the simple things in life and is making the time he has left mean something by making this documentary.

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