On the outside, the Maslins have a fairly typical life for a family of four. Days begin early for preparing for school and work, packing lunches, and getting out the door on time. Abigail, an elementary school teacher, and “TC,” a renewable energy analyst, cook together when they have time to spare, all while caring for two kids: Jack, 8, and Rosalie, 2. But it took seven years for the Maslins to reach this level of normalcy.
In the early hours of Aug. 18, 2012, TC was accosted on his way home from a Washington Nationals game by three young men. They took his phone and bashed his head with a baseball bat, cracking his skull. TC stumbled down the street, knocking on doors for help before he collapsed on a porch for eight hours. If it were not for a passing pedestrian who called 911, TC would have died.
When Abigail woke in the morning and TC was not there, she felt denial at first. Nothing was wrong, she told herself — he had too much to drink and he was sleeping on a friend’s couch. Then she received the call that he was in the hospital, undergoing surgery to remove a part of his skull to protect his brain as it swelled.
The neurosurgeon spoke with Abigail after TC’s first procedure, but nothing made sense in those initial moments of denial and shock. “The surgeon said a lot of words that just didn’t sink into my brain,” she said. “I had never heard the term brain injury before — except that I had heard it many times and never really heard it.”
The surgeon told Abigail they would know after 72 hours if TC would make it. He would undergo a second craniectomy and spend six more days in the intensive care unit before the doctor could guess about TC’s quality of life upon leaving the hospital. The surgeons told Abigail that he could be permanently brain damaged, unable to speak, read, or walk ever again.
Abigail held out hope nonetheless, telling herself “that if he were 80 percent of who he was before, that would be good enough.” She was encouraged when TC grabbed her hand soon after waking from his coma. But he could not speak or walk. Over the course of the 84 days she spent in the hospital by TC’s side, she realized that the lives they lived before that night had become very foreign.
Even as she came to understand that she would now take on the role as full-time caregiver, she had no idea what that would entail. She had just turned 30. She threw herself into taking care of TC and their young son. She soon learned just how much work, and love, is needed to provide full-time for two people who are utterly dependent.
Only over the passage of years did she learn that she and others in similar situations are too hard on themselves. While helping others, caregivers do not permit themselves to heal as well.
Caregivers are survivors, Abigail says, just like their loved ones. Yet caregivers do not feel they have a right to confront their own trauma in the same way that victims do. Caregivers are seen as noble and selfless, when in reality, most care-giving roles are taken involuntarily. As Abigail writes in her blog, traumatic brain injury cannot be planned. It will be inconvenient. It’s an explosion, and someone has to pick up the pieces.
As she became more depressed and discouraged, Abigail felt she could not voice what she calls “bad people thoughts,” wishing to be the one being cared for and having her old life back. She felt intense guilt for having those thoughts. She has since realized, though, that it is important for caregivers to be honest about those feelings in order to pick up pieces of themselves.
She had been told by medical professionals that she would inevitably burn out. After her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer five months following TC’s attack, Abigail had become a caregiver to three people. She realized that burning out was not only a possibility, but it was imminent.
Before long, she was running on limited sleep and an excess of coffee. She was in a perpetual state of heightened adrenaline, always in fight or flight mode.
Then, the loneliness set in. She missed her husband and their lives as they were. She missed conversations and jokes and affection. She wanted someone to take care of her and didn’t know if she could keep it up for 20, 30, or 40 more years. She says one day she looked around and saw that everyone she loved was sick. “It seemed cruel in a way. I was not sick but I was unable to be fully alive,” she said.
Her life was unsustainable, and her mother’s diagnosis forced her to recognize that in order to help those she loved, she had to stop neglecting herself.
She realized not only that people depended on her — TC, her son Jack, her mother — but that she deserved to be well. She took up yoga and meditation. She started running again and cooked healthy meals for her family. She found liberation in blogging about her family’s recovery. She accompanied TC to speech, physical, and occupational therapy sessions. They went all the way to Nova Scotia for an intensive speech therapy program in summer 2013. She has kept up her blog, updating friends and neighbors about TC’s progress, even offering support to readers going through similar trials.
Abigail asked herself, what do readers and fellow caregivers what to hear? They want a place to vent, to grieve, to get advice, but most of all, “a place to be human, where we don’t have to pretend to be anything other than our messy, hurting, hopeful selves.”
Her blog posts and feedback from her readers inspired her to write Love You Hard: A Memoir of Marriage, Brain Injury, and Reinventing Love, published in March, a deep-dive into life as a caregiver and a family in recovery; the good, the bad, and the ugly. The more we share our stories, she says, the more we give back.
Today, TC is not in therapy, but he has his own therapeutic routine. He exercises daily, gets eight hours of sleep every night, and eats vegetarian. He relearned how to drive and, with Abigail’s help and her experience as a teacher, he relearned how to read and write. Abigail says wanting to get back to work was a great motivator for TC. He is now back at his job full time, and Abigail is too.
On the surface, everything is as normal as can be. But underneath, there are difficulties. TC’s speech disability, aphasia, is now a permanent part of their lives. Sometimes Abigail and the kids have to repeat themselves when they speak to TC, or write things down for him. TC does most things with his left side, like unloading the dishwasher or folding clothes, as the right side of his body is permanently damaged.
Even though TC’s brain injury makes him vulnerable to cognitive disabilities down the line, including dementia, the family is dedicated to living in the present moment, and being grateful for the recovery. While she does not subscribe to a particular faith, Abigail has relied on prayer, meditation, and her own spirituality to keep herself in the present moment.
With the help and support of their Washington, D.C. community, the Maslins are getting back on their feet. “This has been like living that movie It’s a Wonderful Life in that last scene where he’s given up and he’s at his end and then everyone comes in and brings the money, and every important, wonderful thing he had done in his life comes back in repayment,” she said.
Abigail remembers her first Google search after the incident. She typed in her husband’s specific brain injury, hoping to find out what life would be like. She says she was looking for a possibility that her family would have a happy ending.
Abigail acknowledges that their lives are different now, no doubt about it. But that’s okay. “I am reminded to look at my life with profound gratitude. This is our happy ending.”
