Holding each other loosely: After my wifes brain aneurysm
The neurosurgeon who operated on my wife’s brain told us to anticipate an 18-month window of healing. “After 18 months,” he said, “there’s a plateau. What you have by way of recovery at that point is pretty much the function you can expect for the rest of your life.”
Susan marked the end of her 18-month recovery period with a visit to the radiology lab. The new MRI results were what the neurosurgeon happily termed “uneventful.” The tiny platinum coil, half the thickness of a human hair, which he had inserted in a small blood vessel the night of the ruptured aneurysm, was holding strong. “We’ll see you in two years,” he said with a smile. “Go and enjoy life.” My 56-year-old Susan was thrilled to hear this pronouncement of freedom.
I don’t mean to use the word my as if Susan is mine in the possessive sense of that pronoun. Actually, I use “my Susan,” a phrase of affection, with great reservation these days. I love her dearly and count 31 years of marriage as my stroke of luck. But our journey together through this traumatic brain injury taught me some powerful lessons of nonpossessive living. Before she collapsed on the kitchen floor in 2013, I knew that life was a gift to be shared, not a possession to safeguard. But that was mostly knowledge in the abstract. These days I live far more intentionally in the gift-to-be-shared zone.
