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Ambiguous Loss. Why Don’t They Talk About It?
I could be the poster child for ambiguous loss
Nine years ago, I almost became a widow on my second month wedding anniversary. My husband survived a horrible motorcycle accident, escaping with fractured ribs, skull, and a severe traumatic brain injury.
While he was in a 21 day coma, a neurologist spoke to me about his frontal lobe brain injuries. She said if he lives, he will be a totally different person than he was before the accident. She said he’ll be unable to process emotions, become inpulsive and not in a good way, not be able to solve difficult problems, and his personality will change. I told her that she was wrong. He WAS going to live, and he’ll still be the same caring, even tempered happy man that I fell in love with. My husband was a man of few words and a fabulous listener.
Shock and Denial
I wasn’t the one with a medical degree. I just lived with my husband for 14 years before we decided to get married. I felt that I knew him better than a woman with a medical degree who specialized in neurology. I told her that she was wrong about his prognosis, and we’d be back someday to show her.
