Pieces Missing

After almost four decades of marriage, Larry Kerpelman and his wife, Joanie, would have been hard-pressed to say what more they could have wanted out of life. Then, suddenly, a freak fall caused Joanie to sustain a traumatic brain injury and threw their equilibrium off course. It took three emergency room visits, two hospitalizations, one brain surgery, and several months of rehabilitation before she was able to regain her lost capacities.

In Pieces Missing: A Family’s Journey of Recovery from Traumatic Brain Injury, Larry tells Joanie’s story as it happens. You will watch and feel as she is hospitalized, faces dysfunction and possibly death, undergoes emergency surgery, and then, over the course of a year—with her family’s support and encouragement—recovers the pieces missing from her memory, speech, and confidence.

Yet this book is more than the story of one person’s recovery from a brain injury. It is a story of how a marriage and family persevered and survived the biggest crisis of their lives. Woven into it are discussions of the inadequacies within our current health care system that Larry and Joanie faced along with information about traumatic brain injury that can serve as a valuable resource for anyone dealing with the aftermath of such an injury. Whether you or a loved one has been affected by traumatic brain injury, or you want an inside account of how health care is delivered, or you wish to understand how the human spirit deals with adversity, this touching memoir of love, hope, family, healing, and recovery will both teach and inspire you.