D-Day
Footballguy
July 2017, my wife had a medical procedure done that resulted in her going into a hepatic encephalitic coma for 6 days. During this coma, she had 24 seizures in a two day period. The result was brain damage and amnesia. Here is the link giving more information about her Liver disease from another thread.
SPOILER ALERT -- my wife received her liver transplant early April and is doing great physically. The mental aspect of the seizures and encephalopathy continue to be a concern.
Make no mistake about it, the situation sucks--hands down SUCKS! But trying to grasp what she is going through and how her brain now works is fascinating to me, and that is what this thread is about.
IMAGINE YOUR SPOUSE WAKING UP AND NOT KNOWING...
WHO YOU ARE: Yep, she didn't know me. After a few days, she caught on that I was important to her. She kept asking my name, and if we were married. It has been nine months and she still does not have any recollection of our life together for the past 30+ years. She does seem to accept that we are married, but I bet secretly she thinks she could have done better. TIP FROM A PRO: If you find yourself in this situation, see if you can have the young, good looking male nurses reassigned to other patients.
WHO HER KIDS ARE: Absolutely no memory of our kids being born or growing up. If she didn't meet them after waking up, she would have no clue that the kids ever existed. That has been tough on the kids (both over the age of 20). She doesn't remember her friends or events from the past 40+ years.
HOW TO TAKE BASIC CARE OF HERSELF: I had to teach her everything. How to shower, brush her teeth, brush her hair, shave her legs, putting on band-aids. Yep, even had to teach her how to wipe her butt. Things we take for granted, but if done wrong, causes infections and other ailments. She is now pretty self sufficient with her daily care.
HER FATHER DIED: My wife has SOME memory of her past. As far as I can grasp, it is up to about age 10. Well, at that time, her father was still alive. She handled the grief of a parent's death pretty well, but every once in a while she misses him and it hurts like hell.
HISTORY: She is now the worlds worst Jeopardy contestant. First President-nope. 9/11 - nope. WWII- forget it (literally). She can read and do some basic math, but it is a struggle. So I may need to enroll her in one of those on-line charter schools.
Those are an example of her memory loss. I try to imagine her sitting with people that are talking about every-day life, and not having the life experiences to follow the conversation.
Then there is the encephalopathy and dealing with "word fog". She has a tough time coming up with the correct words to use, but I have become much more aware of how her brain is working. As an example, if I ask her to get me a knife, she will retrieve one quickly. If I hold up a knife and ask her what it is, she can't always come up with the word. This has been getting better, and with the new liver, hopefully it will go away.
I will update when I run into more situations.
Oh, shout out to NRJ--she too likes hugs.
SPOILER ALERT -- my wife received her liver transplant early April and is doing great physically. The mental aspect of the seizures and encephalopathy continue to be a concern.
Make no mistake about it, the situation sucks--hands down SUCKS! But trying to grasp what she is going through and how her brain now works is fascinating to me, and that is what this thread is about.
IMAGINE YOUR SPOUSE WAKING UP AND NOT KNOWING...
WHO YOU ARE: Yep, she didn't know me. After a few days, she caught on that I was important to her. She kept asking my name, and if we were married. It has been nine months and she still does not have any recollection of our life together for the past 30+ years. She does seem to accept that we are married, but I bet secretly she thinks she could have done better. TIP FROM A PRO: If you find yourself in this situation, see if you can have the young, good looking male nurses reassigned to other patients.
WHO HER KIDS ARE: Absolutely no memory of our kids being born or growing up. If she didn't meet them after waking up, she would have no clue that the kids ever existed. That has been tough on the kids (both over the age of 20). She doesn't remember her friends or events from the past 40+ years.
HOW TO TAKE BASIC CARE OF HERSELF: I had to teach her everything. How to shower, brush her teeth, brush her hair, shave her legs, putting on band-aids. Yep, even had to teach her how to wipe her butt. Things we take for granted, but if done wrong, causes infections and other ailments. She is now pretty self sufficient with her daily care.
HER FATHER DIED: My wife has SOME memory of her past. As far as I can grasp, it is up to about age 10. Well, at that time, her father was still alive. She handled the grief of a parent's death pretty well, but every once in a while she misses him and it hurts like hell.
HISTORY: She is now the worlds worst Jeopardy contestant. First President-nope. 9/11 - nope. WWII- forget it (literally). She can read and do some basic math, but it is a struggle. So I may need to enroll her in one of those on-line charter schools.
Those are an example of her memory loss. I try to imagine her sitting with people that are talking about every-day life, and not having the life experiences to follow the conversation.
Then there is the encephalopathy and dealing with "word fog". She has a tough time coming up with the correct words to use, but I have become much more aware of how her brain is working. As an example, if I ask her to get me a knife, she will retrieve one quickly. If I hold up a knife and ask her what it is, she can't always come up with the word. This has been getting better, and with the new liver, hopefully it will go away.
I will update when I run into more situations.
Oh, shout out to NRJ--she too likes hugs.
great call on this one. 
