Open letter continued, part 2

Part One

I have no memory of several months after my death but I do remember dying.  I'm going to keep most of it to myself.  What I do remember was not unpleasant, peaceful.

I have reconstructed this part of the story with the help of friends.  I found later I had suffered a "bleed" or Brain Aneurysm in my Brain Stem, probably caused by hypertension, if you look it up it almost always causes death.  

On the day this occurred EMS took me to a hospital close by.  I think, but don't know for sure, the EMS team brought me back.  That hospital decided they couldn't treat me and called for University of Michigan hospital's helicopter to transport me to Ann Arbor.  Due to bad weather, the helicopter couldn't fly and I was transported to U OF M by ambulance.  During 7-10 hours of surgery, they opened up the back of my head evacuated the blood, sealed off the bleed and inserted drainage tubes.  Once that was over, they placed me in ICU where I remained in a coma for the next five to six weeks.  The question I'm asked most often is "what's it like being in a coma"?  No clue is my answer.  I do remember emerging from coma, I was very confused and hallucinating.  I'm told I was very violent during the coma, attacking hospital staff, breaking equipment, and yanking out all my tubes.  I'm led to believe that this kind of behavior is not uncommon with a brain injury or as my friend Steve told me later "man you were doing some real Linda Blair shit".  I had to be restrained and have the scars to prove it.  I thought I was in a house with people in white coats trying to murder me, the hallucinations were intense and continued even after I had been moved to a surgical unit.  A tube had been inserted in my throat so communication was almost impossible.  I do know there were friends who sat with me during these times and I can't imagine how bored they must have been.  Here's a tip for anyone who has a loved one with a brain injury,  keep repeating where they are and what happened.  It wasn't until I left the hospital that I knew I was at U OF M,  I thought I was in St. Joe's.  My friend Craig would come by and bring his family,  they are baseball fans and Craig would turn a Tigers game for me and his family to watch.  During the game I kept thinking, they changed baseball, I could not figure out what was going on.
There were things that came back to me right away and other things I had to relearn, brushing my teeth for example.  I had lost my balance so any movement caused severe nausea. Still does.
After seven weeks I was released.

Part Three