Dusty Wentworth

Surviving the rupture changed everything — now I live in a body I barely recognise, searching for meaning in the wreckage. The doctors didn’t expect me to survive my subarachnoid haemorrhage. Some days, I wish I hadn’t. At 36, I was a fit, strong infantry soldier. At 50, I woke blind in one eye, unable to walk, with more than 14 years of my life erased. Survival didn’t mean carrying on with life as it was. It meant waking into a stranger’s body, holding memories that don’t feel like mine, and living with pain that never lets up. The Hole in My Timeline I don’t remember getting married. I don’t remember my children being born. These are the moments most fathers carry as treasures — and for me, they are emptiness. I look at wedding photos and see a stranger in my place. I hear stories of my children’s milestones and can’t recall a second of them. For me, those memories don’t exist. People pressured me: “Do you remember this? Do you remember that?” as if badgering me could som...