​ Whenever I have a Kindle or a pen in my hand or am looking at a computer screen, I feel (illogically) angry: while I can read poetry and essays from any time in history and enjoy the thoughts they encourage in me; while I take pleasure in researching and writing, and in translating from practically any language into English or Spanish, I have to ask help to open a juice box and to be handed anything that’s out of my reach, and I have to wheel myself to go wherever I need to go. How come if my brain can travel anywhere, my legs can’t? How come if my brain has the power of thought, imagination, and problem-solving, my arms can’t reach and my hands can’t open?
But then I remember that time when I was quite younger than I am now and used to walk the streets of Buenos Aires, the Argentinean city where I grew up. I would see a person in a wheel chair, and that chair was pushed by someone else – a spouse, a parent, or a caregiver. The person’s legs looked thin and weak. Their bent hand showed stiff fingers. Their head was tilted to the right, and their face, fixed in a smile. And I would pass by them or let them pass by without more than a glance, trying hard to avoid looking at them. And I wouldn’t wonder about their life beyond the wheelchair.

​Every day, I do exercises with my left leg to strengthen my muscles. Each exercise is geared to a particular muscle in my leg to prepare it for walking. I have to make my quadriceps stronger so that I can lock my knee –  if I can lock my knee and keep it locked, I’ll be able to lift my right leg without falling. I have to have a stronger shin so that I can flex my foot, and then I’ll be able to step with my heel, and then I’ll be able to lock my knee and lift my right leg. I need a stronger iliopsoas to be able to step with a straight left foot, so that I can keep my balance.
Every time I lock my left knee, every time I flex my left foot, every time I rotate my left leg, it takes me time and effort. Contrariwise, every time I lift my right leg, flex my right foot, or rotate my right leg, I do it effortlessly, practically without a thought.
Every time I do my exercises, I’m faced with the differences between my legs; with the magnitude of the obstacle standing before me. Every time I do my exercises, I’m reminded of the differences I found after my injury – I couldn’t wiggle my left toes, I couldn’t flex my left foot, and I couldn’t lift my left leg, all things I could easily do with my right limb. Every time I do my exercises I’m filled with anger and frustration toward chance; toward the cards I was dealt with. And there’s nothing to do but to continue doing my exercises with a smile.

​Randomly, without knowing, I let my fingers travel across my head and throat. They run through my hair, their tips lightly feeling the hills on my scalp. Then, they cross the crater in my temple to climb down my throat and reach the scar buried inside it (it hurts when they touch it). This lunar landscape is the evidence of what happened to me – my blood burst into my brain and nearly flooded it. The surgeon’s team spent a month trying to rescue it.
This landscape fills the gap in my memory. It tells me that something happened, something I only remember through others’ memories. When I feel it, I tell myself that something brought me here today; that something diverted the course of my life. And I tell myself that I will make the best of it no matter what – my tiredness, and the upcoming night that will bring fear along with it. I will keep sailing along despite the unpredictability of my destination. I will keep sailing because Eric tells me that he’ll sail along with me; because we’re in for the long haul.

​On Sunday I walked all the way from the dining room to the kitchen and back.  I almost fell once or twice, but was able to catch myself. And when I failed, Eric was quick to catch me. Then I needed to sit down very badly, so my nurse aid brought the chair. I slowly turned (just teetering on the edge of a fall) and dropped down in exhaustion. I recalled my exercises a while ago, when I was able to walk the full length between dining room and kitchen, and do a full lap in the wooden contraption in the living room without even appearing to lose my balance. I had felt so satisfied with my prowess! Eric saw my shoulders hunched down and my head bowed and told me an oft-repeated phrase: “Stop beating yourself up!” Then, he proceeded to list all the good features of my walking.
After days and days of dissatisfaction and impatience with the slowness of the pace of my improvement, I finally realized I was choosing the wrong point of comparison. I should have used March 2019 as my starting point. Back then, I was still wearing a brace to prevent my knee from buckling and making me lose balance. Since the brace was too heavy for me to lift my left leg, I needed the help of the physical therapist. This should be the point in time with which I should compare my walking on Sunday – I was able to do without a brace because I could lock my knee. My knee didn’t buckle! I could use a forearm crutch as a means of support because when I lifted it, I could balance. And I walked slowly, but I could walk. Eric didn’t need to support my hip to help me lift my leg. He only needed to walk behind me in case I fell. And I did fall, or came close to it. But, as my nurse aid had said, the only reason I lose balance was fear; I lack self-confidence, which will come back over time with a lot of practice.
And I do the same thing with my voice, and my diction, and my swallowing. If I chose the right starting point with which to compare them, as I did with walking, I’d recognize the progress I made, and be happy instead of discontented. So, back to the beginning: Eric is right; I should stop beating myself up.

​When I was discharged I immediately started psychotherapy. I needed to deal with my confusion and my feeling overwhelmed by the massive brain bleeding and its effects; the to-and-fro between home and hospital; and the hospital experience, which meant stretched-out periods of loneliness (everybody, including Eric, had to go). My confusion prolonged the duration of my therapy, but once the blood had somewhat reabsorbed, my brain went back to work, and I could think along with my therapist. Bit by bit, I was able to understand the reasons for my behavior and change them.
And this thinking exercise keeps going. It’s as if I were looking at a character that lived and acted in a different time – before March 23rd, as I used to joke. I’m looking at my prehistory, at the character that was me and has been separated from me by the gap in my memory – by the gap of my coma. This gulf in my history is enabling me to see my previous acts with a detachment that allows me to think in a very productive way.
Having survived the injury, then, has given me a second chance: I’ve been able to think of the consequences of my actions based on the past, and do things differently. I’ve been able to understand myself better and more deeply. And perhaps I’ll be able to change the way I behave. Then, maybe surviving has its positive aspects after all…

​Yesterday I had a seizure. A family member had mentioned to me in the afternoon that somebody in their sixties had died from COVID. COVID always makes me fearful, and other COVID-based mentions had brought up seizures in the past, so I usually meditated when it came up in a conversation. But it was too early for sunset, so I didn’t think I needed that – all my attacks had happened at night with lamps lit, as light had acted as a trigger. Then, a friend from Argentina wanted to talk on Whatsapp, and my younger brother called me while we were chatting. I felt really tired and had a very hard time putting a sentence together. My brother noticed it and said he’d call me the next day. I protested, but I was feeling very tired, so I let him sign off. And then it happened.
The seizure really caught me by surprise and scared the heck out of me. I called Eric and told him what was going on, and he came in a flash. He told me to breathe deeply and slowly, and my body gradually quieted after a minute or so. My eyes teared up out of sheer frustration. I’d been counting down the days until August 11th – the day when three months would have passed since my last seizure. It would have been the longest lapse without one. I was envisioning the next stage of my weaning myself of Kepra (with my neurologist’s approval and guidance, of course), and thinking if my next resumption of work I (despite Eric’s disapproval, of course). I was so proud of myself! And here I was, proving myself wrong. The countdown was interrupted when it was almost over.
And that’s for starters. Then you’d have to add that, regarding the use of left my hand and leg, progress is so slow, I feel that time crawls. I’ll probably sound like a broken record, but I wish I could have normal use of my limbs; I wish I sounded like a native when I spoke; I wish I didn’t have to take anti-seizure meds or meditate; I wish I didn’t have to wake up and do exercises every single day; I wish, I wish, I wish…
If I want to be happier, I need to focus on the minute improvements on my walking or moving my arm and hand; or stop being overly demanding. Eric must be tired of saying, “Stop beating yourself up, Judy.” The days I wake up rested and in a good mood (the bright, sunny days and after a good night of sleep), I can look at my small progresses as the sign I’ve made a major one. But these are rare. Maybe time will start flying; or maybe I’ll stop beating myself up.

​Memory
 
No matter in what room of the house I’m sitting or how lit it is, fear is lurking behind me, waiting silently. I wake up in the middle of the night, and there’s nothing I can do that will make me go back to sleep; I lie awake for an hour, two hours, maybe more. Suddenly I wake up, and there’s a dim light coming through the window. I have two hours to read and write, that’s the plus side. But I’m tired all day long and don’t have Kepra to blame for my tiredness.
A conversation with my therapist helped me find an answer as to the origin of my fear; it was fear of the unexpected, and the coma was unexpected. I’ve the fantasy that when I fall asleep, I’ll be sucked into a black hole. Like Alice, I’ll start sliding through a black whirlpool, picking up speed every time until I’ll fall into a silent wall of darkness.
Sleep and unconsciousness have one thing in common – the lack of bodily activity. Yet, they are very different. While we sleep, our brain and other organs are actively working; we can dream and can also wake up, depending on the degree of lightness or heaviness of our sleep. When we’re in a coma we are fully unconscious; neither our brain nor our other organs work (that’s why I was intubated), so we’re unable to dream or wake up. My unconsciousness left a wide memory gap about my coma that I’ve been unable to fill, an inability that makes me feel as if I had crossed a black hole. But since I have no conscious memories but plenty of unconscious ones (that is, no memories engraved in the cortical layer but plenty engraved in the amygdala), my memories of fear are certainly always present. Because of their similarities, to my amygdala, sleep equals coma, so the first causes fear of the second.
 

 
If you want to find out more about the amygdala and memory, you can read The Emotional Brain by Joseph LeDoux, Simon and Schuster, 1998

​It was Fall 2018, and I had recently returned home after discharge. The plants still preserved their summer green. So, I would take advantage of every remaining sunny day to enjoy the view of the backyard before I could see just bare trees and white grass. I would eat on the deck and spend long hours there, looking at the herb garden (still green thanks to my in-laws’ hard work) and trying to fix its image in my mind.
Then winter came and went, and the backyard was still appealing to me; we were back to budding leaves and blossoms, and the sun peeked out every now and then – being on the deck meant enjoying the soft, warm light on my face. These days, summer is my new excuse to go out, just to enjoy the now-lush trees and the colorful flowers.
I’ve been going on the deck when weather has permitted throughout my entire convalescence, and the backyard has always been there to keep me company – brown, soft green, or bright green; naked, with sprouting buds or blossoms, or full of leaves and flowers. It’s been there waiting for me under a cloudy, mildly sunny, or bright sky. It’s been there when I’ve wanted to take a book, my notebook and pen, or my computer; or simply have lunch and look at it; or think as I look; always there.

I was talking to a friend on the phone, and she asked me to describe what I did every day. I told her about my exercises, and I added that I read, wrote essays, poems, and this blog, and was translating her book. And laughing, I joked that since I had all the time in the world, I might as well take advantage of it. Then, I recalled the words of an old nurse aid when we were discussing my brain injury: everything happens for a reason.
My friend said she didn’t ascribe by this theory, but she thought that my injury had caused me to change the pace of my life, so I had time left to think. And she told me about Byung-Chul Han, a Korean philosopher based in Berlin who writes about the fast pace of living in Western societies. Since they’re so busy, he argues, they lack the opportunity to stop and think.
And what she said is true. The same time I have to meditate, I have to think. Before, I worked all the time (I was stressed either because I had work or because I didn’t); took care of the house and Nathan; and did community work. Today, I have all that time left to think, with the guide of my therapist (it’s the woman who helps me cope with the effects of my injury; as she puts it, of being run over by a truck). And not only is it helpful for me because I can change the way I think and act within my family and circle of friends; it’s also helpful for Eric and Nathan (or I think it is), because I can change my attitude toward them.
There’s yet another thing I’ve gained from my injury, and that’s to pay less attention to time. I’ve no deadlines for anything, precisely because I need to have no deadlines. This means that I can take all my sweet time to write; I don’t have to hand in what I’ve written because there’s no target date set, so my job doesn’t hang on it (as I used to think). I’ve gained time in three different ways, so my injury has made me rich.
***
 
 
Books by Byung-Chul Han, in case you’re interested: The Burnout Society, The Transparency Society, and Psychopolitics
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