LB: Dead Man Writing Pt. 2 – Gwen’s Story

by Larry Brody

Now that you’ve had time to digest my self-serving words (in the previous post) it’s time to turn to the only other human being I’ve ever loved more than myself. Ladies and gents, I give you, or rather have given you above, my wife of just a couple of weeks shorter than thirty-two years, Gwendolyn Lea Manns Brody.

Many of you already know our story by having read the Live! From Paradise! articles on various websites and newspaper pages. The way I’ve always seen our relationship is that unlike most other people I know, ours isn’t about sharing ups and downs but rather about sharing the ups and the higher ups.

Yep, wonder of wonders, it’s been that kind of world for us. Just a few months ago, however, that changed. Last January 14th, I awoke to the sound of a huge THUMP!!! I looked across the bed and saw Gwen lying face down – very face down – on the floor at her side of the bed.

One of the things I didn’t mention in my previous post is that the only recognizable effect of my cancer is that I have difficulty walking. I have to take all my movement very slowly and seriously. When I saw Gwen lying immobilized, I forgot everything but her and thrashed my way over the bed to see what was going on.

The good news was that I made it there and she was alive and making sounds that sounded almost like words.

The not so good news was that she couldn’t get on her feet until I managed to pull, push, and otherwise arrange her stance.

She tried to walk but couldn’t get her feet to move to the right place. Left was right and right was left. Nor could she talk. It took more than a little time to maneuver her back into bed, after which I called for an ambulance and got dressed while waiting for it to arrive.

The local ambulance teams are all male. More than that, they’re all very handsome males. We ended up with two ambulances and six EMTs, each one of them looking like a film star and with a particular list of questions about what happened. I couldn’t answer much of it because I’d been asleep when the actual misstep occurred, and neither could Gwen because she still couldn’t form words.

Within half an hour, all of us were at the local E.R. Within another half hour, we all heard the various test results. Gwen hadn’t had time to protect herself as she fell, so her face took the full brunt of the fall. The result: her brain was heavily concussed, and she had a subdural hematoma that took up twenty-five percent of her skull.

What does a subdural hematoma do? It doesn’t just sit there. Oh, no. It bleeds.

“I’m afraid your wife needs immediate surgery,” the E.R. doctor said. “Without it, she’ll die.”

All I could do stand by helplessly as Gwen was whisked off to the helicopter pad and flown to Seattle, where she was quickly admitted to our friendly out of the neighborhood trauma center, where the specialists took over.

It was a huge relief when more tests determined that surgery wasn’t needed after all because the brain bleed was getting smaller on its own. This was a very good sign, but still Gwen stayed in the trauma center for five days of observation and repeated tests. During that time, she began to regain the abilities to walk, see, hear, talk, even think, but at a terrifyingly low level.

When we took her home, Gwen was Gwen, but a sort of over-simplified version. Many memories were gone, and her eyesight, which was just a hair away from making her legally blind due to a stroke twenty-two years ago, had become much worse, as did all her other abilities.

In the four months since, Gwen and I have had at least one home health care pro at the house daily, and every day Gwen improves. On the surface, she looks and sounds, and usually behaves, in a way that seems about ninety percent of who she was. And, strangely, she has become more self-confident than ever before, because she is continuingly facing new challenges that force her to regard daily life in a whole new light.

Gwen’s new days are more than the same old, same old. They are opportunities that require her to approach everything in a creative way. I’ve been in love with this woman for her beauty and intelligence since we first met. Now I’m in awe of her bravery as well. Doing all I can to help her move onward and fully become Gwen the Beautiful Point Two is a true honor.

Although I have to admit that doing all the laundry and the dishes and helping her interpret what she can’t quite see sometimes leaves me in tears.

Time now for a QUICK NOTE OF THANKS to my next-door neighbor Paul Wynkoop, who helped me through the very rough first ten days after the fall. As we used to say back in the ‘Sixties, “Love you, man.”

But nowhere near as much as I love Gwen.

LYMI,

LB