Garden Therapy Inspires Recovery
After surgey steals her memory, a woman learns how to live again through her garden.
By Jim Long
August/September 2002
Can you identify this plant for me?” the lady asked as she took a seat beside me. We were on a bus tour of Texas herb businesses, winding our way through the Texas hill country to see herb farms and greenhouses. We were eager to learn what each business made or grew.
RELATED CONTENT
Stop smoking with these herbal tips...
If your yard, balcony, or deck receives a few hours of sunlight, you can still grow abundant versio...
Herb gardeners hold differing opinions about self-heal. Some welcome its cheerful violet flowers i...
Make these nutritious, satisfying recipes at home, then take them along for all day sustenance. ...
“I hope you don’t mind my sitting here,” the lady said. “I have a photo of a plant that I hope you might help me identify. I understand that we know each other.”
Gem, an acquaintance from several years earlier, continued her conversation by telling me that she was aware that we knew each other, but she hoped I would be forgiving if she didn’t recall just how we were acquainted. “You see,” she said, “I had surgery for a brain tumor two years ago and it left me without my memories. I’m slowly putting together new ones day to day.”
Gem told me that doctors initially believed she was suffering from a form of Alzheimer’s disease because her short-term memory had disappeared rapidly. Eventual testing revealed a large benign tumor and surgery was of high risk. The medical team warned her that she had only about a 50 percent chance of surviving the surgery, but there were no other reasonable options for treatment. Fortunately, Gem survived the surgery.
“But when I woke up,” she said, “large areas of my memories were no longer there. They had taken away nearly 25 percent of the volume of my brain.” In the weeks after surgery, Gem didn’t recognize her husband or other family members. She could speak a few words but had no idea what the words meant. Even stranger, she occasionally slipped back into speaking Spanish, a language she had learned when living in South America but no longer used.
She didn’t recognize everyday objects. She had completely lost her ability to walk. Gem explained that she began therapy immediately, mostly aimed at helping her brain compensate by learning to store memory in the areas not affected by the tumor and its removal.
“My family and church life and my writing all revolved around my garden,” she said. “But after the surgery I didn’t even recognize any of those dearest parts of my life.” Her husband helped her with everything, patiently assisting in the therapy, not showing his frustration at how slow and minimal Gem’s progress was. One day he simply wheeled her out to her old garden. “He just sat me down on the ground in the middle of my herbs, hoping some glimmer of memory would reappear. He was at a loss of what else to do,” she said.