November 9 2012 was a day that changed
my family’s lives forever the day
started fairly normal I went to bed at a
normal time along with our
three-year-old daughter my wife wanted
to stay up and watch some shows later
that evening I was awakened by her
sitting on her side of the bed crying I
woke up and I asked her what was wrong
she said I couldn’t find the doorknob we
didn’t realize it at the time but that
was the first sign that she was having a
stroke whether it was because she was a
week before her 34th birthday or because
she takes a lot of pills for her chronic
migraines we didn’t really realize what
was going on until the next morning by
the time we had gotten her to the
hospital and the clot was removed she
had been having a stroke for nine hours
when I entered the ICU after the surgery
this is what I saw she was in a
medically induced coma which was
required because they hooked her up to a
machine that lowered her core body
temperature in order to reduce the
amount of oxygen her brain needed
because the stroke had gone on so long
the damage was significant this is an
MRI of a horizontal slice of her brain
as if you were looking at from her feet
so it was a right side stroke all that
white area you see up there is
functionally dead as you take scans
going up towards the crown of the brain
you can see that the damage really
covered a significant area of the right
side of her brain she spent three weeks
in the hospital for weeks in inpatient
rehab she went from being essentially
completely paralyzed on the left side of
her body to being able to walk with a
walker over those seven weeks and we
would learn a lot well
there we would learn about strokes what
right-side strokes in particular we
would learn what kind of deficits she
might have we would learn the kinds of
things we would have to do to the house
to make it safe for her to be able to be
at home again
there were also a lot of things that
really weren’t answered we had questions
like would she really be able to be a
mother to our daughter what would this
do to our relationship what would it do
to me now that I have to be a caregiver
for my 30 year old of a wife we got a
little bit of information on these
larger questions the advice I got for
being a caregiver was make sure to take
care of yourself the only bit of
information we got about what might
happen to our marriage however was I was
quoted the rate at which marriages that
suffer stroke and in divorce for any
doctors in the audience I do not suggest
this you can imagine with a 50% divorce
rate on average the number that I was
quoted was startling only high however
as we got home and we started trying to
live our lives again some things did
become answered I was wondering the kind
of person my wife would end up being and
I very quickly realized she was a much
more angry person than I remembered you
would be angry and frustrated too if you
had words in your head that you just
couldn’t convince your mouth to spit out
or if you remembered moving in ways and
being able to do things that you just
cannot get your body to do anymore
another major deficit that she had that
was very apparent early was that she had
lost the ability to understand nonverbal
communication I can’t stress enough how
difficult that is to live with an
example would be that if she were
standing in a doorway and you would walk
up to her with purpose because you were
trying to get past her
she’d just stand there and stare at you
blankly until you said can you move she
just didn’t understand what was being
communicated there eventually a lot of
this anger ended up leaking over to me
part of it was the fact that I was
realizing that this wasn’t the woman I
married
and I started to empathize with that
large number of people that ended up
getting divorced realizing this angry
woman that I’m that I’m meeting just now
this is a different person inside my
wife’s body I also would let this anger
vent and I would say things like it’s
like I’m raising two kids I can’t stand
this now of course this was hurtful to
my wife she didn’t need that at the time
but I also realized what it was doing to
our daughter well I saw those eyes
looking up at me I started to think what
is she learning about my or from my
behavior is she learning that her mother
is a child that she is not an authority
figure over her that she doesn’t have
wisdom to impart as she grows up and
made me step back and reevaluate how I
was acting I didn’t want to hurt my wife
and I certainly didn’t want to sabotage
their future relationship so being the
only adult in the family that was fully
capable physically mentally and
emotionally I decided the only thing I
could really do was take on as much as I
could of course while I was at work as I
did eventually have to go back to work
my wife had to learn to be a mother all
over again I’m happy to say she did an
admirable job of it any parents out
there understand just how exhausting
being a parent is of a small child
imagine when you’ve got all the problems
of energy that comes with having a
stroke
and so when I would come home from work
on any given day she would be just
wrecked just exhausted and so no matter
what happened at work I had to pick up
the bulk of parenting as well as the
cooking and the cleaning the yard work
working on the car and anything else
that needed to be done but in it in an
attempt to make sure that my wife had
the space to heal and my daughter also
had the room to grow I would look for as
much as I could to pile on my shoulders
and soon it became things like my own
doubts my fears my sadness my anger that
piled all up on my shoulders I thought
like I said I’m the one who’s the the
emotionally healthy one here I should be
able to handle this I don’t need to be
putting these petty grievances on my
wife’s plate she’s got enough it didn’t
work out well well my wife would slowly
steadily improve in many of her deficits
my life felt it was like it was going
the other direction I didn’t feel like I
had a partnership anymore I didn’t feel
like I had any hope for the future that
I was really just going to be working
myself into an early grave it all came
to a head one fall weekend where I had
to go out and clean up a lot of leaves
out of my yard I remember what happened
that week before but I did not start the
day in a super great mood and after
putting in all the work through most of
the day to clean up those leaves I came
in and all I needed was for my wife to
see the condition I was in walk up throw
her arms around me give me kiss and say
Chad that looked like a lot of work the
but she didn’t have the ability to read
that on my face
it was literally removed from her brain
from her stroke and so what I got when I
came in was everything she had seen that
needed to be done in the house because I
had spent all day out of it and that’s
the protocol pile things on Chad’s
shoulders he’s the one who can get
things done she had no idea that this
was not the day to be doing that so I
retired to my bedroom closed the door
and contemplated how can I get out of
this trap I thought about leaving the
country unannounced I thought about
suicide I thought about the methods
consequences but every time no matter
what I thought of my brain went back to
a scene that I was imagining of my wife
and daughter reading a letter that I had
wrote explaining them what I had done
and as the wave of hopelessness washed
over them they would just sit there and
it’s been several years since that
happened over this time I’ve realized
that stroke is not the only thing they
can drive somebody into this kind of
situation it’s really anything that
could cause an asymmetric situation in a
family where one person feels that
they’ve got things so much easier than
the other it could be any kind of
permanent disability it could be an
addiction it doesn’t even need to be a
bad thing it could be something like a
promotion that causes one person in a
relationship to have so much more work
to do that the other person needs to
take on many more menial tasks they
might not have done before but in all
these cases it’s very easy to slide in
to the point where you’re now not just
taking on chores but you’re also closing
up all of your emotions from your
partner this caused two major problems
for me one was that turns out I didn’t
have the capability to deal with all of
my emotional problems I’ve been married
for over 12 years we had been dating for
longer than that there was nobody in
this planet that knew me as well as my
wife and so when I thought I could deal
with all of my emotional problems I was
just lying to myself and I needed to
hurt her
the second problem really stems from the
first because I had decided unilaterally
to stop sharing my life with my wife she
functionally ceased being my wife she
became my patient and so I had decided
on my own without any input from my wife
the very sad thing is I didn’t even give
her a chance to try I had decided based
on what I had seen that she did not have
the ability to do that now the good news
out all that is that it gave me a third
option I didn’t have to run away I
that told my wife what I had done told
her that I needed her help for the first
time since the stroke happened told her
that this was certainly making a big
difference to me but also to her family
and honestly I’m not going to be an
effective caregiver to her if I am just
completely emotionally wrecked it didn’t
go well at first when I told her that I
felt trapped she looked at me with anger
in her eyes and went you think you feel
trapped which is fair enough but she
understood the need and so we said
reasonable expectations for each other
knowing that there were going to be some
days that she couldn’t deal with my crap
just as there are sometimes days that I
can deal with hers but we work together
on it and I’m happy to say that I in
fact did learn to love the woman that
was living inside my wife’s body our
marriage now is as good as it’s ever
been and we’re pushing new frontiers
going places that I never thought that
she’d be able to go when she was lying
our story is relatively rare not many
people have a stroke when they’re in
their 30s but as I said there are a lot
of things that could cause an asymmetric
circumstance in your relationship and
the longer your relationship lasts the
better chance something might come up I
just want you to remember if something
like that does happen to you that no
matter what happened overnight if she
couldn’t find the doorknob or whatever
else that doesn’t change the fact that
she was a partner to you before and she
still wants to be a partner to you
afterwards and even through any sort of
love or altruism
that would make you want to take that
away just remember that is so
fundamental you need to not let that
happen thank you
my family’s lives forever the day
started fairly normal I went to bed at a
normal time along with our
three-year-old daughter my wife wanted
to stay up and watch some shows later
that evening I was awakened by her
sitting on her side of the bed crying I
woke up and I asked her what was wrong
she said I couldn’t find the doorknob we
didn’t realize it at the time but that
was the first sign that she was having a
stroke whether it was because she was a
week before her 34th birthday or because
she takes a lot of pills for her chronic
migraines we didn’t really realize what
was going on until the next morning by
the time we had gotten her to the
hospital and the clot was removed she
had been having a stroke for nine hours
when I entered the ICU after the surgery
this is what I saw she was in a
medically induced coma which was
required because they hooked her up to a
machine that lowered her core body
temperature in order to reduce the
amount of oxygen her brain needed
because the stroke had gone on so long
the damage was significant this is an
MRI of a horizontal slice of her brain
as if you were looking at from her feet
so it was a right side stroke all that
white area you see up there is
functionally dead as you take scans
going up towards the crown of the brain
you can see that the damage really
covered a significant area of the right
side of her brain she spent three weeks
in the hospital for weeks in inpatient
rehab she went from being essentially
completely paralyzed on the left side of
her body to being able to walk with a
walker over those seven weeks and we
would learn a lot well
there we would learn about strokes what
right-side strokes in particular we
would learn what kind of deficits she
might have we would learn the kinds of
things we would have to do to the house
to make it safe for her to be able to be
at home again
there were also a lot of things that
really weren’t answered we had questions
like would she really be able to be a
mother to our daughter what would this
do to our relationship what would it do
to me now that I have to be a caregiver
for my 30 year old of a wife we got a
little bit of information on these
larger questions the advice I got for
being a caregiver was make sure to take
care of yourself the only bit of
information we got about what might
happen to our marriage however was I was
quoted the rate at which marriages that
suffer stroke and in divorce for any
doctors in the audience I do not suggest
this you can imagine with a 50% divorce
rate on average the number that I was
quoted was startling only high however
as we got home and we started trying to
live our lives again some things did
become answered I was wondering the kind
of person my wife would end up being and
I very quickly realized she was a much
more angry person than I remembered you
would be angry and frustrated too if you
had words in your head that you just
couldn’t convince your mouth to spit out
or if you remembered moving in ways and
being able to do things that you just
cannot get your body to do anymore
another major deficit that she had that
was very apparent early was that she had
lost the ability to understand nonverbal
communication I can’t stress enough how
difficult that is to live with an
example would be that if she were
standing in a doorway and you would walk
up to her with purpose because you were
trying to get past her
she’d just stand there and stare at you
blankly until you said can you move she
just didn’t understand what was being
communicated there eventually a lot of
this anger ended up leaking over to me
part of it was the fact that I was
realizing that this wasn’t the woman I
married
and I started to empathize with that
large number of people that ended up
getting divorced realizing this angry
woman that I’m that I’m meeting just now
this is a different person inside my
wife’s body I also would let this anger
vent and I would say things like it’s
like I’m raising two kids I can’t stand
this now of course this was hurtful to
my wife she didn’t need that at the time
but I also realized what it was doing to
our daughter well I saw those eyes
looking up at me I started to think what
is she learning about my or from my
behavior is she learning that her mother
is a child that she is not an authority
figure over her that she doesn’t have
wisdom to impart as she grows up and
made me step back and reevaluate how I
was acting I didn’t want to hurt my wife
and I certainly didn’t want to sabotage
their future relationship so being the
only adult in the family that was fully
capable physically mentally and
emotionally I decided the only thing I
could really do was take on as much as I
could of course while I was at work as I
did eventually have to go back to work
my wife had to learn to be a mother all
over again I’m happy to say she did an
admirable job of it any parents out
there understand just how exhausting
being a parent is of a small child
imagine when you’ve got all the problems
of energy that comes with having a
stroke
and so when I would come home from work
on any given day she would be just
wrecked just exhausted and so no matter
what happened at work I had to pick up
the bulk of parenting as well as the
cooking and the cleaning the yard work
working on the car and anything else
that needed to be done but in it in an
attempt to make sure that my wife had
the space to heal and my daughter also
had the room to grow I would look for as
much as I could to pile on my shoulders
and soon it became things like my own
doubts my fears my sadness my anger that
piled all up on my shoulders I thought
like I said I’m the one who’s the the
emotionally healthy one here I should be
able to handle this I don’t need to be
putting these petty grievances on my
wife’s plate she’s got enough it didn’t
work out well well my wife would slowly
steadily improve in many of her deficits
my life felt it was like it was going
the other direction I didn’t feel like I
had a partnership anymore I didn’t feel
like I had any hope for the future that
I was really just going to be working
myself into an early grave it all came
to a head one fall weekend where I had
to go out and clean up a lot of leaves
out of my yard I remember what happened
that week before but I did not start the
day in a super great mood and after
putting in all the work through most of
the day to clean up those leaves I came
in and all I needed was for my wife to
see the condition I was in walk up throw
her arms around me give me kiss and say
Chad that looked like a lot of work the
but she didn’t have the ability to read
that on my face
it was literally removed from her brain
from her stroke and so what I got when I
came in was everything she had seen that
needed to be done in the house because I
had spent all day out of it and that’s
the protocol pile things on Chad’s
shoulders he’s the one who can get
things done she had no idea that this
was not the day to be doing that so I
retired to my bedroom closed the door
and contemplated how can I get out of
this trap I thought about leaving the
country unannounced I thought about
suicide I thought about the methods
consequences but every time no matter
what I thought of my brain went back to
a scene that I was imagining of my wife
and daughter reading a letter that I had
wrote explaining them what I had done
and as the wave of hopelessness washed
over them they would just sit there and
it’s been several years since that
happened over this time I’ve realized
that stroke is not the only thing they
can drive somebody into this kind of
situation it’s really anything that
could cause an asymmetric situation in a
family where one person feels that
they’ve got things so much easier than
the other it could be any kind of
permanent disability it could be an
addiction it doesn’t even need to be a
bad thing it could be something like a
promotion that causes one person in a
relationship to have so much more work
to do that the other person needs to
take on many more menial tasks they
might not have done before but in all
these cases it’s very easy to slide in
to the point where you’re now not just
taking on chores but you’re also closing
up all of your emotions from your
partner this caused two major problems
for me one was that turns out I didn’t
have the capability to deal with all of
my emotional problems I’ve been married
for over 12 years we had been dating for
longer than that there was nobody in
this planet that knew me as well as my
wife and so when I thought I could deal
with all of my emotional problems I was
just lying to myself and I needed to
hurt her
the second problem really stems from the
first because I had decided unilaterally
to stop sharing my life with my wife she
functionally ceased being my wife she
became my patient and so I had decided
on my own without any input from my wife
the very sad thing is I didn’t even give
her a chance to try I had decided based
on what I had seen that she did not have
the ability to do that now the good news
out all that is that it gave me a third
option I didn’t have to run away I
that told my wife what I had done told
her that I needed her help for the first
time since the stroke happened told her
that this was certainly making a big
difference to me but also to her family
and honestly I’m not going to be an
effective caregiver to her if I am just
completely emotionally wrecked it didn’t
go well at first when I told her that I
felt trapped she looked at me with anger
in her eyes and went you think you feel
trapped which is fair enough but she
understood the need and so we said
reasonable expectations for each other
knowing that there were going to be some
days that she couldn’t deal with my crap
just as there are sometimes days that I
can deal with hers but we work together
on it and I’m happy to say that I in
fact did learn to love the woman that
was living inside my wife’s body our
marriage now is as good as it’s ever
been and we’re pushing new frontiers
going places that I never thought that
she’d be able to go when she was lying
our story is relatively rare not many
people have a stroke when they’re in
their 30s but as I said there are a lot
of things that could cause an asymmetric
circumstance in your relationship and
the longer your relationship lasts the
better chance something might come up I
just want you to remember if something
like that does happen to you that no
matter what happened overnight if she
couldn’t find the doorknob or whatever
else that doesn’t change the fact that
she was a partner to you before and she
still wants to be a partner to you
afterwards and even through any sort of
love or altruism
that would make you want to take that
away just remember that is so
fundamental you need to not let that
happen thank you
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