When I was a freshman in college, 11 years ago, my father had a hemorrhage in his brain. He was paralyzed on one side, had cognitive deficits - the rehab was tough, he had to relearn so many things. Six months later, they realized that the cause of the bleed required brain surgery, and so he had the surgery. There were complications during the surgery and he was re-paralyzed and again had cognitive deficits. So he ended back up in rehab, relearning the things he had just spent months relearning. After about 18 months, things were mostly back to normal, but brain injuries are hard and you’re always dealing with little fallouts. After 11 years though, things had really righted themselves. My father’s brain had basically entirely retrained itself, he’s learned workarounds for the things that he wasn’t able to relearn, and, we don’t ever really think about the fact that he’s got a massive dead spot in his brain.
Then,about 2 weeks ago, on Memorial Day, I was on my way home from a potluck, and my mother called to tell me that my father had had another bleed, they were transferring him from our local hospital, to a larger facility, that it seemed pretty bad, her phone was about to die, she was following the ambulance to the hospital, and could I call my siblings and could we all pray.
I got to the hospital at about 2 in the morning to be with my mother The next day, after meeting a neurosurgeon that I nicknamed “Dr. Slice and Dice,” we had him transferred to the hospital where his old neurosurgeon practices. He had brain surgery exactly a week after the bleed. I happen to live in the city where we had him transferred, so my mother stayed with me. She was at the hospital every day, starting at about 6:30 or 7 in the morning. I had to go back to work after a few days, but was at the hospital every night. Everything went pretty much as one would hope, and he was discharged Friday night. The bleed was in a different part of the brain and so the deficits aren’t nearly as serious as 11 years ago. He’ll be able to do home health rather than having to be in a facility, and everyone seems to expect a full recovery within months.
I don’t want to talk about this to anyone. I just don’t. I think if I could get away with pretending it never happened, I would. I can’t, because I did tell my friends, and they were wonderful - bringing me food, praying for us, picking up my siblings at the airport and driving them to the hospital. But now that its more or less over, I just don’t want to talk about it.
I’m not sure what’s going on there, but I think maybe I’m tired of being the woman with the drama. This past year, I’ve had so many crises, and I’m just tired of telling people about them. I want to be able to tell people that things are fine and mean it.
So there’s that. I’m going to have a cup of tea now and watch an episode of The Newsroom, because that’s how I’m spending my weekend.
