IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH

NAVIGATING LIFE AFTER BRAIN INJURY

BY DAVID A. GRANT

In 2009, my wife Sarah and I were married during a seaside wedding ceremony on the coast of New Hampshire. It was a day that the local chamber of commerce would have labeled as a perfect summer New England day.

The backdrop to our wedding was the Atlantic Ocean, with a few sailboats filling the scene and sails billowing from a light summer wind. On a nearby island, a classic New England lighthouse watched the boats pass by, and a few puffy white clouds adorned a deep blue sky, as if for effect. We were much younger then and looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together, in an uneventful life.

But as life often does, it threw us a curveball, of sorts, when the unexpected became our "new normal." Just after our first wedding anniversary, our lives changed forever, when I was hit by a car driven by a teenage driver. My injuries were catastrophic and included broken bones, lacerations, torn ligaments and tendons, and a traumatic brain injury. While not life-ending, my injuries were indeed life-changing, and still affect our everyday lives, over a dozen years later.

I began that November day back in 2010, as a self-employed professional, but by day's end, I would begin the next chapter of my life as a disabled adult. Sarah's life was also forever changed and she would take on the role of a caregiver, a role she never expected.

Roles in a marriage were something I never really thought about before everything changed. At the time of our wedding, we had