Imagine waking up every day to a whole new world. That's what happened to Su Meck when she was 22 years old. She had a husband, a two-year-old son, and an eight-month-old baby. No one is really sure how the accident happened, because her husband's back was turned, and she can't remember, but she was hit in the head by a ceiling fan. The injury didn't look bad; just a one-inch cut, but it knocked her out and she was bleeding profusely, so she was taken to the hospital. Her brain had bounced around inside her skull, and when she awoke she had no memory of her life up to that point.After three weeks, she was sent home with a husband she did not know, to a house and children she had no memory of. The doctors had decided she was faking her memory loss, and she got no more therapy. But she couldn't read or write, couldn't find her way home if she went more than a few blocks, and had to idea how to care for her children. She was thrust abruptly back into the life of a suburban housewife, with no help and very little sympathy. She was essentially a child raising two other children.
This memoir was written to help people understand more about traumatic brain injury. Even the medical profession doesn't have a lot of knowledge about it, although it is better now than in 1988, when this happened. And family, friends, neighbors...she was treated with pity, disdain, contempt, and exasperation. She wanted to understand more about the whole issue herself, and she wanted others to know what life is really like with this type of injury. She had a co-writer, and they went through her medical records, and did a lot of research on TBI. She explains the different types of memory, and how it works.
A very interesting, thought-provoking book.
280 pages
