1 Litre of Tears

"Sometimes I feel like my body doesn't belong to me. What's happening to me?" -- Kito Aya

This dorama is about a girl who was diagnosed with a disease called “Spinocerebellar Degeneration” when she was 15 years old, and was able to continue her life until her death at the age of 25 years old.

The plot is based on the true story of a Japanese girl named Kito Aya, who had the same disease. She kept writing in her dairy to remember her experiences until she could no longer hold a pen. Aya simply wished to live until the end of her life, and the purpose of writing in the diary was to remind herself to not give up. She shed tears many times, at the same time encompassed by the rich love and support from her family, friends, and boyfriend. Her diary “1 Litre of Tears” was published after her death, because of its inspiring and courageous message of

“Just being alive is such a lovely and wonderful thing.”

So far, over 18,000,000 copies of her diary have been sold.

Synopsis

This dorama starts right before Aya is confronted with the illness, Spinocerebellar Degeneration, in which the nerve cells of areas necessary for the human body to move and balance–including the cerebellum, brain stem, and spinal cord–transform and eventually disappear.

Ikeuchi Aya (Sawajiri Erika), a 15 year old girl, is the eldest daughter in a normal Japanese family. She lives with her reliable mother, Shioka, who works as a nutritionist, her father, Mizuo, the wacky owner of a tofu shop, her quiet younger brother, Hiroki, and two younger sisters, the sarcastic Ako and innocent Rika. On the day of her high school entrance exam, she left the house full of energy, but she missed her stop to get off the bus and walk to her high school because she fell asleep. She quickly got off and ran from the bus in the rain when she discovered she was late. She slipped, fell down and injured her knee. At that time, she met Haruto Aso, who was trying to skip the exam. He gave her a ride to school, the administrators allowed them to take the exam (despite the fact that Haruto was uninterested in taking it), which they both later passed.

The new semester began, Aya and Haruto were in the same class, and both were elected as the representative of their class. Aya also joined the basketball team, and was reunited with the boy who she was fond of from the male basketball team. Just as she was beginning to enjoy her high school days, Aya starts to experience some physical difficulties. She always dropped food from her chopsticks, could not estimate the distance of the objects in front of her, could not pour water into a cup without spilling it, and occasionally wobbled while walking. Her mother, Shioka, who was the only one to notice the physical changes in Aya, started to worry about what was going on.

One day, Aya’s life started to change after she tripped and fell. She couldn’t protect herself with her hands while falling and she hurt her face. After this, her illness is slowly revealed and her tragedy begins…

More or less know a bit..


Spinocerebellar Degeneration

An autosomal recessive inherited disorder that leads to the progressive dysfunction of the cerebellum, spinal cord and peripheral nerves.
Symptoms usually begin in childhood before puberty and consist of an unsteady gait (ataxia), slurred speech (dysarthria) and jerky eye movements (nystagmus). Other findings include kyphoscoliosis, hammer toe, heart disease and high arches. Congestive heart failure is a common complication. There is no known treatment and prognosis is poor.