After my eight hour brain surgery to remove my AVM, I
suffered from amnesia for several more weeks which faded
away after that. There were also, according to my wife,
two instances where my recovering brain seemed to lose
touch with reality.
The first was when my wife was leaving the hospital one evening, and going home for the day, and I asked her to hitch up the horses to the wagon and take me home soon.
I have no memory of this, but it fits my unusual sense of
humor and I am near certain that I was joking. She does not always know it every time I am joking and that is one thing
that I like about her.
The other time was when she visited me at the hospital
and I told her that the man who shared my hospital room
with me was a spy hiding out from someone. In this case
I am sure that I was out of it and I blame the recovery
from my operation. Again I have no surviving memory of this. Maybe he was a spy, but I bet if he had been he
would have been far too careful to let me see it!
After being near death and recovering from major brain surgery, the brain does sometimes show lapses. But after
going home from the hospital and getting back into work
and life and everything we heal and improve and flourish.
It has been 12 1/2 years since I left the hospital, and
I am now back essentially to normal for me, but I was
not that brilliant to begin with so the rest of you
may have a bit further to go to get back to normal. (Smiling)