Five years ago, ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff was stuck in the head by shrapnel from an Iraqi bomb. Woodruff recovered and went back to work less than a year later. Lee Woodruff, his wife, tells their story:
There are few miracles and lots of hard work in the excruciatingly slow process of recovering from a brain injury. People ask me when it was I knew Bob would be OK, and I tell them it was a full year before I let my breath out. I would have chosen absolutely any other kind of injury or disease but this. Every other horror I could think of at least had odds or prognoses. A brain injury is as individual as the people who receive them. The brain is our most complicated and complex organ. Some of the deficits and ways people are tinkered with in the aftermath can be painful to bear. Yes, spouses are lucky their loved one is alive, but that creates guilt over grieving the loss of both little and big things. It’s a complicated grief.