awoke following surgery. Although
the surgical team had needed to cut
through an ear-bone and had severed
her neck muscles – leaving her unable
to turn her head or hear properly –
every piece of the tumour had been
removed and was benign. Relieved, a
jubilant Christine predicted she’d be
back to work within two weeks.
But three months later, she found
herself crushed by a depression
and agoraphobia that left her
terrified of leaving the house.
Most days, she didn’t get out of
her pyjamas and didn’t leave her
bed – a state inconceivable to the
former workaholic. Her livelihood
in communications relied on her
being a bubbly people person. Then
there was the guilt. “I couldn’t think
what was wrong with me for feeling
so ungrateful when the surgery had
gone so well. The surgeon said to me
that, in terms of brain surgery, mine
had gone the best you could get,” she
says. Accompanying the guilt was
intense worry that she would never
get back to the business she had built
and depended on to provide for her
children.
At around that time, she spoke to
her specialist, who explained that
normal thought processes could be
interrupted after a brain operation.
Partly calmed, she began to relax and
accept her condition. It was then she
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