I often feel that my mind isn’t what it used to be. Working in live news, being a news junky I could take in and process enormous amounts of information and recall it easily enough to be able to discuss it intelligently later on. I’ve always been able to do that.

Up until my aneurysm.

It’s not that I don’t care about the things I used to be quite passionate about, but it seems much more convoluted and requires so much more energy now. I know this is also part of aging but to have the awareness itself is frustrating. And there is no way to measure how my brain is now as opposed to before. All the doctors can tell me is whether or not everything looks as it should.

I often wonder whether I’m the same person I was before. I haven’t seen most of the people who know me really well since the aneurysm, so I have no identity confirmation, if you know what I mean. After telling a couple of people about what happened they immediately asked if I had children. It was hard not to get defensive and say that my life is still valuable without having had them. But they are parents themselves so I know that their minds immediately went to their own children.