Rebooting My Brain: How a Freak Aneurysm Reframed My Life
A captivating, deeply authentic memoir of a devastating illness and a heroic recovery. Maria Ross' memoirRebooting My Brainis a testament to one woman's personal courage and a reminder that health is a tenuous treasure. --Carol Cassella, best-selling author ofOxygenandHealerMaria Ross weaves a tale of inspiration, love and hope about an active woman reclaiming her life after an unexpected crisis. Her humorous and honest voice leaps off the page and makes you feel as if you re talking to her over coffee, even when she s describing medical procedures. This is a must-read for anyone who s ever had the rug pulled out from under them, not just brain injury survivors and their families. --Ingrid Ricks, author ofHippie Boy: A Girl s StoryRebooting My Brainis a deeply moving account of Maria Ross s brain aneurysm and her struggle to come to terms with it. She has written a memoir full of humor, grace, and hope, making it clear such a devastating injury can be overcome and can even serve as a means of discovering what is truly important in this life. --Nick O Connell, author ofOn Sacred Ground: The Spirit of Place in Pacific Northwest Literatureand founder of TheWritersWorkshop.net.The vivacious memoir writer was a marketing and business-branding consultant before her brain exploded. Just like there are no atheists in the foxhole, we can say there are no folks who don't examine their lives after they almost lose it.I believe the book is valuable for several reasons. First, Ross is not a professional writer. She doesn't lie or fictionalize. Her experiences strike me as authentic, compared to many other memoirs. She truly writes with unabashed candor. She had an aneurysm and survived. After the cerebral hemorrhage, she was blind for six weeks and suffered horrible physical pain. She lost her memory and vocabulary. She had eye surgeries, brain surgeries, personal therapies, MRIs, drugs, in-home care, group therapies; the whole business might have cost a million dollars without insurance. What if her husband had not worked at Microsoft, which had excellent benefits?The post-aneurysm months were excruciating, but with tremendous spirit (perhaps that perky marketing optimism helps) we root for her. She's humorous and honest and even describes her myriad of medical procedures as if she's talking about her dog, who figures prominently in her recovery. Her reflections on the tenuous, and even frivolous, nature of health are touching. It's all random. And it doesn't matter who you are or what you believe.A year and half after almost dying, she decided to write a book. This book tells us about the last two years of Ross's life after her brain injury and the trials and tribulations for her, her husband, Paul, and their friends. Do not ever take life for granted. Now she's 'back' to her life and even admits she's back on the 'hamster wheel', but perhaps with more philosophical reflection focusing on quality more than quantity.--San Francisco Review