My blog will switch from hospice care for Mom to the subject of caregiving for a loved one with a traumatic brain injury, the focus of my life in 2002, when my husband, Hugh, suffered a TBI.
I have decided to publish a memoir about the journey of his remarkable recovery, and the insights I garnered from the intense experience of caring for him during that uncertain time. The title of the book will be "Learning by Accident."
I began writing this book in the ICU, a few days after Hugh was struck by a car while riding his bicycle. His accident occurred on April 13, 2002. An ICU nurse told me that a written record would be therapeutic for me, and it would help my husband remember things later on. She was right. That book filled up, along with others. I wrote for hours, days, weeks, months, years...always deciphering the story, always digging for meaning, trying to make sense of the senseless. I'll use this blog to post a few of the lessons I've learned, along with helpful tips for those caring for their brain injured loved ones. It's a long, slow journey, TBI. The slowness of it can tear your heart out if you let it. Here we go.
It takes a special soul to be a caregiver. To bring someone into your home and into your private world is the ultimate in caring. Because, in caregiving, the outside world comes to a screeching halt as the caregiver and the patient form their own special existence.
ReplyDeleteTerry
Rosemary,
ReplyDeleteThe blog's beautiful, the transition works, and I continue to be awed at how gracefully you've come through two huge crises!
Wow!
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