Today (April 18) is my 10-year anniversary. Not of my marriage nor of its demise after 37 years. Nor of my job—I ended that last October after 35 years at the same newspaper.

I’d never thought of the day I almost died as the stuff of anniversary commemoration. But a week or two ago, the numbers clicked in my head. Ten round, full years since my younger daughter and then-husband had found me splayed face-down, unconscious, on the bathroom floor. Ten years since I’d entered the hospital in a coma. Ten years since doctors said that if I awakened, I would almost certainly need extensive rehabilitation because the EEG was showing multiple seizures.

Spoiler alert: I survived. I’m fine, better than fine. But I’m not the same.

That’s a good thing.

What I Remember–and What I lost

As I spent two and a half days unconscious in the neuro-intensive ward, doctors frantically tried to figure out just what was wrong with me. The answer was a mysterious case of encephalitis, caused by sudden acute inflammatory reaction, not any bacterium or virus. The source of the inflammation? There are theories, but nothing definitive.

When I awakened, it seemed that a horde of medical professionals crowded into the tiny room, peppering me with boring questions. Did I know my name? Did I know who the president was? Did I know where I was? Did I know the date? Or even the month or year? Yes, yes, yes … and then, no, no, no. Time had been lost to me. So had my ambition. I was awake, but in a fog. I liked it there. For once I wasn’t worried about whether my newspaper would do another round of layoffs or finding a decent plumber for the weird kitchen plumbing.

So it annoyed me to be wheeled to a room with two physical therapists who asked me to do what felt like stupid—and difficult—tasks. Touch my right index finger to the left side of my nose. Pull on socks. Why were these people demanding these things of me when I just wanted to rest?

It’s humbling to realize that what we think of as inherent traits, controlled by us, are really just artifacts of our physical brain. Why were dates, of all things, gone from my cognitive ability when I spent most of my working days on deadlines? And why was I crying so much? I had never been a crier.

The physical therapists must have noticed my frustration, because one of them explained that even if this seemed silly, they needed to see how extensive my brain damage was to determine the long-term rehabilitation I would need. Inpatient or outpatient?

When the Fog Started to Lift

Perhaps we do still retain our own personalities, because that line popped me back into reality. My brain shouted at me: I’m the sole support of my family! My youngest child is leaving for college in the fall! My first grandchild is due in a couple of weeks! I have neither the time nor money for extensive rehab. Wake up, I commanded myself. Get back to yourself. You have things to do.

Oddly enough, I obeyed. I willed my skills to return to me. I started asking orderlies about the date and time. I had my daughter bring my laptop. I couldn’t remember how to sign in, but once on, the decades of putting words to keyboard returned. Five days after I was admitted, a doctor entered my room and said, “You are our miracle patient. We don’t know how it happened, but you can go home.”

The Life I Built After

The illness did change my life, though. It transformed my viewpoint, my definition of what really mattered, my concept of gratitude, and my sense of how my brain works. Every year since then has felt like a bonus year in my life, a year in which I could’ve been dead or reduced to trying to remember how to walk, talk, or hold a fork. Think of it as the gift of a disease-driven kick in the head.

In truth, I wasn’t as fully back as doctors thought. I discovered a week later that my muscle memory for handwriting, or even printing, had disappeared. I tried writing short notes and my printing looked like that of a painstaking six year old. Worse, though my cognitive abilities seemed normal to most people, they weren’t normal for me. My sister, husband, and kids noticed that I wasn’t quite as sharp. I spoke in shorter sentences with shorter words. I still made my daily deadline at work, but I had to sweat with worry to get there.

I told my doctor, who said that I essentially had a year from my illness for brain healing and that stress was the enemy of brain recovery. “I know you live for the exciting stress,” she said, “but your job isn’t doing your brain a favor.”

What to choose? Give up the career I loved and the income my family relied on for the chance—because nothing was guaranteed—to get back the brain with which I’d always lived?

The fates seemed to answer a month later when the company offered an extremely generous buyout. I did the figures, determined that even if I couldn’t make money after leaving, we’d be OK if we tightened our belts akin to Scarlett O’Hara’s corset.

Three months later—with just two months left before reaching the one-year anniversary—I was writing in my journal when it suddenly struck me that my thoughts were coming more clearly, my writing style more fluidly. A week after that, my husband told me out of nowhere that I seemed to be back.

Mostly, yes. But there are differences. I still cry way more than I used to, and I’m glad. Things touch me more, for better or worse. People matter more. Sometimes, I let myself rest in the fog. At the same time, I take more risks and have developed a huge appetite for trying new things. Leaving the paper launched me into freelance work, making just as much money and owning my own life, leading eventually to a contract to write my second book at age 68. I went back to college to study archaeology at the age of 69, hiked 35 miles in Ireland at the age of 70, and realized that semi-miracles could happen, even to me.

Who Showed Up–and Who Didn’t

I learned back then about the people who are there for me and those who aren’t. My youngest, who probably saved my life by insisting that her father call 911 when he thought it might not be necessary. My eldest, too pregnant to come down and oversee my care, called my sister 3,000 miles away, saying I needed her sharp, insightful mind and knowledge of medicine to survive. My sister jumped on the next plane to be here. There was the friend who declined to help my husband look up medical terms he didn’t understand while the nextdoor neighbor I barely knew left a note for my husband and youngest offering to do anything that would help them at this time. Her mother-in-law, who it turned out was the nurse in charge of the neuro intensive care unit, recognized me and put all her powers into finding the hospital’s best doctors to come in and treat me on the weekend.

I’m Still Here. Still Asking What’s Next.

Once I emerged from the fog, it became startlingly clear to me that I could have been suddenly and unexpectedly gone at age 61, before my spectacular red-headed granddaughter was born. My younger daughter asked me recently if I think a lot about dying now that I have reached 71. The answer was no, not really. I’m thinking more about what my next thing will be. Not that I’m Ms. Zen. I can still angst with the best of them. Sometimes, in the post-encephalitis years, life has fallen apart. But luckily for me, life still happens.

And in case you were wondering, today is April 18, 2025.