Recovery timeline:
t + 3 weeks: Staying in a dark hotel room near the hospital, attending day-patient psychometric testing and receiving counseling at the HCMC Knapp Rehab center. Failing a lot of basic tests & puzzles, things "I know I can do" but can't seem to master. Some trouble dialing long distance, troubles using an ATM. HCMC is a good place.
t+4 weeks: I fly back home but can't locate my car in airpot the parking lot. My friend arrives and we find it, and pay a no-mercy $960 parking bill. One the way home, we stop at In-N-Out burger, and I eat my first full meal in 28 days. I've lost 14 pounds.
t + 9 weeks: Driving my car to the library and the gym, though I know I'm pushing it a little. Trying to read Eckhart Tolle but have to "take it from the top" each time I pick up the book. Everyone wants me to read Stroke of Insight but I can't handle the thought of it, I'm squeamish about brain surgery. When I'm not sleeping, I'm spending long hours at the gym pool, or in the jacuzzi, lying flat across the steps, soaking my head in the warm water. I have two very short-term episodes of amnesia. They're a little scary.
t+14 weeks: Driving 30 miles to work, functional at work for up to 5 hours at a time, taking catnaps in my office, poor memory. Working about 4 days per week. Lots of medical appointments. I'm entirely unconcerned about workplace politics.
t+6 months: Most of my engineering ability back, still forget things, have to write a lot of things down. I never lost any actual engineering knowledge, I simply did not have sufficient memory & cognitive function for the first few months such that I could edit complex computer programs or analyze circuit problems in detail.
t+18 months: Probably close to the peak of my recovery, in which I feel my short-term memory function is at about 75% of what it was, and most of my cognitive ability is back, though in an entirely different form.
Sensations:
I often feel like a visitor from another planet. I'm somewhere, doing something, and then I drift into a feeling of detachment and just watching it all play out in front of me, like some movie. It's not a bad thing, I start to like these moments. I think it's my right brain taking over. I was really bored in my former life.
So many times, my brain offers up a completely different view of a situation, a view expressed very much in the abstract. I watch a very simple, literal situation unfold as some bonehead argues with a waiter, but my brain summarizes it as a waste, a senseless theft of the waiter's limited life energy.
My brain is constantly punning, and I make a lot of funny jokes. I'm grateful to be alive and care a lot less about trivial things. People around me seem to be overly concerned about things that hardly matter. I notice music a lot more than I did, and appreciate vocal harmony and often lock onto a voice striving to express something tonally. For the first time ever, I want to watch soccer.
I have trouble sorting out sounds in restaurants or other situations in which echoes exist. This gets better with time but I'm now acutely aware of the how much useless jabbering people do. If a restaurant has a tile floor and a lot of glass, I'm better off eating a sandwich in my car.
I'm able to design complex printed circuit boards more efficiently because my new brain wants to work from a starting point of symmetry and beauty. I don't have to work so hard to get the results I want, it all flows a lot easier, and everything feels lighter and less constrained, like I'm flying a glider instead of driving a truck.
I'm a lot more interested in the big picture, in the abstract, in the diversity and connectivity of things, rather than my old life of navigating a lot of trench-level minutiae. I wanted out of this anyway. I do have to grieve some loss of left-brain function, including a superb memory. But it's a lot more peaceful here on the right side of things, it's not boring, and there's a lot more room for my creativity. In many ways, I feel like a better person.
Long term side effects:
One feels "flat" for a long time after the event, and we tend to say things bluntly until some of the nuances of speech and cognition come back to us. I have lost some ability to speak Spanish with an authentic accent, and I've at times been a little too direct with my siblings.
I'm still very sensitive to ultraviolet light - things like computer screens and cell phone displays. When indoors working under fluorescent lights, it's best I wear ordinary sunglasses or I'll have trouble sleeping at night. I have to control the intake of light, though I have no problems with ordinary sunlight, which I cherish.
I get tired and feel "flat" if I've talked a lot during the day or have been in a noisy environment.
In the ICU, I heard a lot of people calling out for God, or for their mothers. I called out for both many times. This changed my life in many ways.