When Sarah Vallance is thrown from a horse and suffers a jarring blow to the head, she believes she's walked away unscathed. The next morning, things take a sharp turn as she's led from work to the emergency room. By the end of the week, a neurologist delivers a devastating prognosis: Sarah suffered a traumatic brain injury that has caused her IQ to plummet, with no hope of recovery. Her brain has irrevocably changed.
Afraid of judgment and deemed no longer fit for work, Sarah isolates herself from the outside world. She spends months at home, with her dogs as her only source of companionship, battling a personality she no longer recognizes and her shock and rage over losing simple functions she'd taken for granted. Her life is consumed by fear and shame until a chance encounter gives Sarah hope that her brain can heal. That conversation lights a small flame of determination, and Sarah begins to push back, painstakingly re-teaching herself to read and write, and eventually re-entering the workforce and a new, if unpredictable, life.
In this highly intimate account of devastation and renewal, Sarah pulls back the curtain on life with traumatic brain injury, an affliction where the wounds are invisible and the lasting effects are often misunderstood. Over years of frustrating setbacks and uncertain triumphs, Sarah comes to terms with her disability and finds love with a woman who helps her embrace a new, accepting sense of self.
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[I started work on this memoir during my MFA at City University in Hong Kong]***
(Little A, 1 August 2019, 275 pages, e-book, #popsugarreadingchallenge 2020, a book on a subject you know nothing about, bought from @AmazonKindle)
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Prognosis drained me, emotionally and mentally and at times it felt like a physical drain because I cried so much time reading the book. I've never experienced any kind of brain trauma and none of my family and friends have so the author's experience was completely alien to me. She's an incredibly brave person and this book is a testament to her determination not to be defined by her doctor and social worker's dismissal that she will never be able to work again and will never finish her PHD. I was a bit shocked at the way they treated her. Her doctor never discusses options with her and doesn't tell her that her brain can repair itself. The social worker is awful, calling Sarah's work and telling them she will never be able to return, without her consent and enrolling her in a therapy class to make doll's clothing, again with no discussion or consent. With no help from her social worker or the medical profession, Sarah is able to repair her brain, working every day to copy from her PHD that make no sense at first to learn to read and write again. She not only gets her PHD but is able to hold down an international HR job which involves a lot of travelling overseas. She would never have achieved this if she listened to her social worker and doctor. This is a remarkable book about just what people are capable of.
