text: High Plains Drifters: Living without eating, drinking, or speaking
  There are a lot of people struggling, and it serves no purpose to try to rank their suffering. But Roger Ebert is living a hell that I cannot imagine. Since his surgery for thyroid cancer, he has been unable to eat, drink, or speak. That took a while to sink in. No food of any sort. No meat or dairy or plant. Not a sip of water, let alone a bottle of wine or a Grape Nehi. And every bit of communication is non-verbal.