Here’s a long story about my connection with brain damage.
(apologies for the length. i’m on my phone)
When my father was 17, he had dehabilitating headaches that the doctors incorrectly diagnosed as a brain tumor. He was pumped full of radiation and given six months to live. Doctors advised my grandfather not to tell him, my grandfather ignored them. This was 1961.
My dad spent the next 30 years living a relatively normal life. He married my mom in 1977 and had four children in eight years, with me being the last born. My mom was a stay at home mom, quitting her job as a nurse after child #2 was born. My dad worked in computer systems. They were your stereotypical middle class family.
When I was 5, my dad’s headaches came back. With the headaches came short term memory loss and poor balance. I have no memory of this but I apparently was trained to follow my dad around the house, turning off lights after him. He was hospitalized and diagnosed with hydrocephalus, which meant he had too much fluid in his brain. He had a brain operation to help relieve the fluid and a shunt was inserted.
My dad recovered but not fully. He still had memory and some motor issues. He had to quit his job which meant my mom had to go back to work. My family struggled financially for a long time. The gender roles growing up were reversed. My dad was the one to see us off to school (“have a good day at the office!”) and made dinner every night. My mom was the one who came home from work and sat on the couch, watching the news and sports.
When I was 14, his headaches became severe. He couldn’t drive. He had Alzheimer’s-like systems. My brother and I took turns staying home from school to babysit him. He’d wake up in the morning, eat breakfast and read the newspaper, walk out of the kitchen, only to do it all over again 10 minutes later because he had no memory of already doing it. He once asked my brother to plant Oreos in the garden. My mom got a dress in the mail and I watched my dad put it on because he thought it was for him. This was scary for a 14 year old to witness. He had three brain operations in three months. He did occupational therapy for nearly a year. He couldn’t drive again. His memory was still shotty and slow.
When I was 17, all the radiation he received 40 years earlier destroyed blood vessels to his brain and he was suffering from mini-strokes. Do you know how scary it is to see your dad collapse in front of you and have a stroke? He was placed on blood thinners and had to get his blood checked periodically because too much or too little medication could result in a massive stroke.
When I was 25, he was hospitalized again as his shunt was failing. I visited him in the hospital over Christmas 2011 and he seemed in good spirits. This was the last time I saw him alert. He was released in January but had to go back in several weeks later as he had an infection. He had another surgery so they could fix the infection and in doing so, had to temporarily remove the shunt. They had to be careful about surgery because remember, he was on blood thinners and one thing blood thinners do? Make you bleed. A lot. The doctors wanted to give his body time to heal so the shunt was externally attached to him. However, every time they tried to wake him from the medically induced coma, he’d start to have a stroke.
BUT they needed to insert the shunt again and they were worried he’d die on the table. IF he survived, his way of life would be over. He wouldn’t be able to read or write -and for him, that was it. He was a lover of books and a writer of music. If recovered, he’d be in an assisted living facility and have a poor quality of life. My mom was faced with an impossible decision: insert the shunt and face death on the table or him severally disabled. Remove the shunt and he slowly dies.
She ultimately decided to forego the surgery and let him go peacefully. For six days I sat in a hospital room for 15 hours, watching my dad die. He wasn’t in pain and morphine was what ultimately killed him. His nine lives were over when he peacefully died surrounded by family on April 7, 2012. He was 67.
I share this because my dad suffered from brain issues for FIFTY years. He was given a death sentence when he was 17 but he managed to survive, travel the world, marry and have children and meet his grandchildren, have a steady job for 30 years, and have a relatively good life. Brain disabilities are hard for not only the one who is suffering from them, but also for their family.
Reading what some people are saying about this Emmerdale story makes me sick to my stomach. Laughing it off, making fun of Rebecca, pissed at Robert (and Aaron and Chas) for being concerned and scared. This is a real thing that real people go through. I commend Emmerdale for telling this story and for showing how a brain disability can affect family and friends. I’m invested in the story they’re telling and I hope Robert and Aaron continue to support Rebecca.
Watch what you say because you don’t know who’s life has been affected in a similar way. This...THIS is triggering for me.
