Reflection

Although I shouldn’t have gone back to work so soon, it did set me on a path toward recovery. I was surrounded by normal life every day. The limits of what my brain could do were tested each morning, and that helped me notice the problems and find ways to manage them.

It’s been almost a year, and the path ahead is still unclear. But here’s the thing: that’s okay. With just a 55% chance of success, I haven’t had a single seizure since the surgery. I can take the kids out, ride my bicycle, drive a car, and still do my job.

Some days I wish I had never had that surgery, that I could have my old self back, the one whose mind felt the connections it once had. And yet, I’m eternally grateful the storm finally went quiet — peaceful, tranquil.

I can’t offer advice to anyone, only perspective. An insight into an incomparable journey through an unexplored realm.

“You’re not the person you used to be,” someone once told me. As hard as it is to hear, I hope the new me can carry meaningful change into the world, however it may come to fruition.

I have so many more stories to tell, and after a year, I finally realized the thread that connects them. The person who saved my life back in 2006, my incredible wife who encouraged me to see the doctor, the colleagues who helped when I woke up on the floor, the people who cared for me on the bus, and the specialists who shaped the course of my future.

And then there was that day when our friends arrived with baked goods and big hearts, even though I couldn’t remember their names.

I wish I could take you to that other universe, the place my seizures once carried me, where thoughts and feelings exist beyond words. Because that, dear reader, is the closest I can come to showing the gratitude I have for the people who walked this with me.