On a regular day, just before Christmas, 1999, as the world prepared for the new century, my life as an 18 year old was fairly ordinary. I had gone to work in the morning with no inkling of what was to follow. A few hours later, during a break, I looked at my mobile phone to find a dozen missed calls. My father, then in his late 40’s, had collapsed at the gym, and had been taken to Flinders Medical Centre. A family friend arrived to take me there, and I remember telling dad I loved him before he was taken in an ambulance to the Royal Adelaide Hospital for brain surgery. He had suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage, a condition fatal to a significant percentage of sufferers. The surgery was major, and took many hours. The recovery was long and slow, and the impact on all our lives significant. This book is my response to this traumatic event and the uncertainty, darkness and personal questioning in the days that followed. My father has an outward scar on his forehead, the rest of my family carry theirs inside. Life has continued on for us all, but the ripples of this event remain even now.

Before, I was one person. This book traces the changes that I went through in discovering more about myself and the impact of almost losing my father had on me. I remain after, but am changed forever, making the most of the time that I have.