Professor Cromer Learns to Read by Janet M. Cromer

It's tiring, but I do it because I love him and I know he'd do it for me.' I find myself on edge a lot, trying to keep him-and us-on an even keel. He gets frustrated much easier now, and he doesn't always interpret the things people say the way they're intended. 'I tend to push myself into the background and concentrate on what David needs. All of my focus was on getting better, so Cheryl had to take a back seat to that for a while.' 'When I came home from the hospital, I wasn't present emotionally in terms of our relationship. 'It's like you're back, but you're not-especially at first,' says David, who returned to his teaching job at a regional technical high school two years after the accident. David and Cheryl also had to adjust to a relationship that was very different from the one they had had before. When he regained consciousness, he had to relearn everything from walking to how to play his beloved guitar.

David spent a month in a coma at Maine Medical Center in Portland. When a deer ran in front of them, David braked quickly and skidded off the road, sustaining a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). On a beautiful June day in 2008, Cheryl and David Hanington were riding their motorcycles with a group of friends, on their way from their Massachusetts home to a music festival in New Hampshire. How a Relationship Can Survive After Traumatic Brain Injury Moderate or severe TBI can take a devastating toll on a marriage or partnership, but for many couples, those changes can be worked through.

Professor Cromer Learns to Read by Janet M. Cromer