Latest / The Letterbox Podcast / Dear Brain Injury | A Wife’s Letter After Her Husband’s Traumatic Brain Injury

Transcript

Dear Brain Injury | A Wife’s Letter After Her Husband’s Traumatic Brain Injury · The Letterbox Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello, and a very warm welcome back to the Letterbox podcast.
• 0:06
  Today's letter comes from someone who has chosen to remain
• 0:09
  anonymous, but whose words I know will stay with you long
• 0:13
  after this episode ends. When she emailed me, she said
• 0:17
  she'd been trying to find a way to express what's in this letter
• 0:20
  for almost 2 years. Then when she came across the
• 0:25
  podcast, she immediately knew this was how she wanted to tell
• 0:30
  her story. She describes this letter as a
• 0:34
  story of herself, her husband, and the stranger that came to
• 0:40
  live with them after his accident.
• 0:44
  One of the things that struck me most was why she wanted to share
• 0:47
  it. She told me that once people
• 0:49
  with brain injuries return home from hospital, the medical
• 0:52
  support often fades, but that the reality of living with the
• 0:56
  injury does not. And through this letter, she is
• 0:59
  hoping that another family might come to realise something that
• 1:02
  she has learnt herself. That the stranger is not the
• 1:05
  person in front of them, but the injury that happened to them.
• 1:12
  The words in this letter are incredibly emotional, but there
• 1:15
  was something that she wrote in the e-mail that really made me
• 1:18
  'cause she said that writing this letter had helped her
• 1:23
  process something she's been holding on to for years.
• 1:28
  Her husband read the letter before she emailed it in because
• 1:32
  she wanted him to know that she was doing it and be OK with it.
• 1:37
  He told her it was the best letter he'd ever read.
• 1:45
  Unsurprisingly, that made them both very emotional.
• 1:49
  And I've got to say, hearing that made me emotional too.
• 1:54
  This really is the power of putting feelings into words.
• 1:58
  Sometimes writing them down can help us make sense of them, and
• 2:01
  sometimes sharing them helps others feel less alone.
• 2:05
  And it really is why the podcast exists, to give people a place
• 2:09
  to tell the stories they've been carrying.
• 2:14
  Before. I read you today's letter.
• 2:16
  If you've not already, please press the follow button wherever
• 2:19
  you are listening. It only takes a moment if you
• 2:24
  are also able to leave a review and share it with someone else
• 2:27
  you think might like to hear this.
• 2:29
  It does so much to support the podcast.
• 2:32
  These actions are really simple, but these letters to serve to be
• 2:37
  heard. And now today's letter.
• 2:45
  Dear brain Injury, you came without warning late on a Friday
• 2:51
  night at the end of what should have been a wonderful day, but
• 2:55
  that will forever be remembered as that day.
• 3:01
  The words severe, unconscious and permanent damage floated
• 3:06
  around the hospital ward as you took hold of my husband.
• 3:11
  He was placed into a medically induced coma to allow his brain
• 3:14
  to heal and we visited every day, talking to him and talking
• 3:19
  to the nurses who were caring so wonderfully for him, watching
• 3:26
  everything that happened to him and wondering what life would be
• 3:29
  like on the other side. When he was woken up 3 weeks
• 3:36
  later, you made your presence known.
• 3:39
  It wasn't like the films. There was no gradual waking up.
• 3:43
  And then I feel like I've been dreaming.
• 3:48
  We could see it in his eyes. He had temporarily taken the
• 3:53
  movement of his right side and had temporarily taken his
• 3:56
  speech. He knew us, but he didn't know
• 4:02
  us. He couldn't remember our names
• 4:06
  or where we lived. He had no memory of what had
• 4:09
  happened that night. And for that, I'm glad.
• 4:14
  When he came home six weeks after the accident, you
• 4:18
  obviously came to a stranger in our house that will never leave.
• 4:26
  We talk about you nearly every day.
• 4:30
  Some people think that's strange, but how can we not when
• 4:33
  you took so much from him and changed his life so drastically?
• 4:40
  We both know it could have been a very different story and that
• 4:43
  we are some of the lucky ones, but we can still be angry with
• 4:47
  you. You took his balance, his
• 4:51
  hearing, his understanding of words, his sense of taste and
• 4:55
  smell. You took his job, his career,
• 4:58
  and with it a lot of his self-confidence.
• 5:05
  On your worst days, when the strain and fatigue are visible
• 5:09
  on his face, you make him feel less than he was.
• 5:12
  And I hate you for that. Because to me, he is not less,
• 5:20
  he is so much more. He refuses to let you beat him.
• 5:27
  He will keep trying to defy you. And he is still here, despite
• 5:32
  you, living, breathing and enjoying this new version of
• 5:40
  life as best he can, despite everything that you have taken.
• 5:48
  Sometimes you make us laugh when the word comes out wrong if he's
• 5:53
  tired. Sometimes you make us cry when
• 6:00
  we remember what you took and how fragile life is.
• 6:05
  The tightrope that we walk between the world being upright
• 6:08
  and then suddenly everything being upside down is so thin.
• 6:14
  Neither of us fully appreciated that before you came, but we do
• 6:17
  now. We have more photographs of us
• 6:22
  together after you than before you.
• 6:25
  We spend more time together, we laugh more together.
• 6:29
  We make time to make new memories.
• 6:31
  Can we write them down for our happy jar?
• 6:35
  If you've taught me anything, it's to live life as fully as
• 6:40
  you can in the present. Tomorrow is not promised and
• 6:47
  yes, we need to make plans, but if they can all be turned on
• 6:50
  their head in the blink of an eye, now is more important.
• 6:59
  You were not welcome when you first came home, but we are
• 7:06
  learning to live with you. You are here to stay and he will
• 7:13
  keep on defying you because although you may win some of the
• 7:17
  battles, you will certainly not win the war.
• 7:24
  He is not and will not be defined by you.
• 7:28
  So keep watching us as we go about our lives.
• 7:33
  They may be different, but they are ours, not yours.
• 7:45
  From The Wife of a Warrior, thank you so much to today's
• 7:54
  writer for trusting me with something so personal, so lived
• 7:58
  in, and so deeply felt. There is something very powerful
• 8:02
  in what was just shared, not just the story itself, but the
• 8:06
  courage that it took this lady to put it into words and for her
• 8:10
  and her husband to let them be read by someone else.
• 8:14
  So I'm grateful, grateful for the openness, for the trust, and
• 8:19
  for the reminder that even in the most complicated parts of
• 8:22
  life, people are still trying to reach each other, still trying
• 8:26
  to understand, and still trying to love well, even when things
• 8:31
  have changed. So again, thank you to the
• 8:34
  writer of our letter today, you and your husband's story.
• 8:40
  Strength and love will stay with me and I'm sure we'll have
• 8:44
  anyone else listening. Thank you again for listening to
• 8:48
  the Letterbox podcast. Please do make sure that you are
• 8:51
  following and tell somebody else about these letters.
• 8:55
  Let's honour the people who are taking the time to write them by
• 8:59
  by telling other people they really do deserve to be heard.
• 9:04
  Until next time, look after yourself and your loved ones.