On Oct.
The aneurysm left him with a disruptive tinnitus in the left ear which dramatically affected his daily life, driving him to view suicide as an appealing option. A surgeon diagnosed the problem as a blood vessel impinging on the acoustic nerve, and a solution: drilling a hole and placing a Teflon wedge between the vessels and the nerve.
The Teflon wedge was placed, and the tinnitus was gone. But while still recovering in the hospital, the bandage covering Jon's head began filling up with blood and he went into respiratory failure. Surgery was immediately begun to stem the bleeding vessels, which left Jon minus a piece of his cerebellum.
Jon went into a coma-like state, which he remembers only as one of nightmares about things being stuffed up his nose. His wife would ask him to squeeze her hand if he could hear her, and Jon would squeeze her hand. But during the two-month long coma state, Jon was operated on for a bleeding ulcer, had a heart attack, pneumonia, a fever of 106, and a staph infection.
When he awoke to the world, Jon had to relearn the basics: to breath on his own; to chew, swallow, and to speak.
Two years after the hospital, Jon attempted to go back to his chiropractic practice, but was unable to function in that role.
The brain aneurysm and the horrific hospital events had left his mind changed, or as Jon said to the GQ writer who told Jon's story,1 "The info goes in from my eyes to my brain now totally different. ...My brain is scrambled." He described it as barriers being destroyed. The result was that a creative side of his personality has blossomed. His speech is uninhibited, and he now sees colors as if for the first time, with fresh eyes -- with a different perception. And he feels compelled to express his revelations in artistic renderings with what he calls boltfalsh.
It should make for an interesting movie: Tom Cruise, DC, coming to a theater near you.
Reference
- Metamorphosis. Andrew Corsello. Jan. 1997, GQ. p136-145.