One morning in 2017, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni wakes up to find that everything looks blurry and blurry.
“There was a fog, a speckled fog on the right side of my vision,” Bruni said. “And I thought for hours that there must be something in my eye, or maybe I had too much to drink the night before. Then I thought, Oh, no, those are my eyeglasses. I just cleaned them up. And and so on, to this day, I realized there was something wrong beyond all of that.”
Bruni, then 52 years old, quickly learned that he had suffered a rare type of stroke that had irreparably damaged his optic nerve. Prognosis: His vision in that eye will never return. Furthermore, there is a 20 to 40% chance that another stroke will affect his good eye.
The news is devastating. “I’ve had some real emotional, psychological and spiritual work to do to accept this and find the most productive and constructive way to move on,” he said.
But after going through a period of shock and horror, Bruni found herself at a decisive moment: He could either repair what was lost, or he could focus on what was left. He chose to do the latter.
“I feel like once you’ve realized what happened, … it’s so important and constructive and so right to focus instead on all the things you can still do. , all the blessings remain,” he said. “I finally made up my mind – determined to prove to myself that I could adapt to whatever was coming.”
Frank Bruni is a contributing writer for New York Times and a professor at Duke University.
Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy
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Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy
Frank Bruni is a contributing writer for New York Times and a professor at Duke University.
Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy
In memoirs, sunset beauty, Bruni documents the changes in his vision and the adaptations he has had to make in his work, personal life and attitude.. The book is also a biography several others have survived and thrived in ways that Bruni says are profoundly instructive.
“I decided it was time to learn about how people at their most resilient survive and make the most of these situations,” he says. “And that’s been my personal journey and the one I described in the book.”
Highlights of the interview
Experience how agile and resilient the brain is through this experience
I’m scared at the thought that I’ll lose [all of] My eyesight, I am no more. I hope I never do. I wish what had happened to me so far hadn’t. But you quickly realize that the senses that are still there often become sharper to compensate for the damaged sense. You learn how agile the brain is.
I was shocked to learn that sometimes, in certain situations, I was able to take in visual information that I didn’t have before because I was optimizing what was available to me. I’m focusing on certain details with my good eye in a way that I can’t with my good eyes. And that’s both a material promise, but also an example… of how nimble our brains and bodies can be when circumstances call for it. And when you realize that, when you see it in reality, in your own life, you lose a lot of your worries and fears about what’s coming and, frankly, about growing old. Because as we age, we all lose certain physical potentials and are required to make certain adjustments and compensations.
Became single when his long term relationship ended, around the time he had a stroke
The possibility of second eye blindness was actually one of the reasons – when we had to decide whether or not to try to mend the relationship – I decided not to. And I know that feels almost counter-intuitive or counter-intuitive, but I feel the question is whether I’ve loved faithfully enough or just loved enough. I’m so worried that my partner is making my decisions and calculations in the context of “I can’t leave someone who may soon find myself desperately needed”, and I don’t want to be in such a relationship . I don’t want to feel like a hindrance or burden to anyone.
But I had a great privilege and luck there, which is that I have a very close family. I have three siblings that I couldn’t be closer to. And so I never had to worry – and I don’t worry now – that in the worst case scenario I would be alone and without a support system. Lonely, for sure. And I feel so lonely when… [we] broke up, and I’m still lonely sometimes, but loneliness is bearable and… I want to be as real as possible, and that’s more important to me than little solitudes.
Try to have an optimistic outlook, set an example for your mother, who has cancer
[My mother] had survived the cancer – a very rare and aggressive cancer – much longer than she expected. Like her, I decided to be as active as possible. I decided to try to do as much as I could, instead of saying, “Oh, oh, I have to do less now.” I have probably read more books in a month since losing my sight in one eye than I did in the past. “Read” has become another verb. I listened to 2/3 of them and I trained myself to do it in a way I never imagined. I listen to these books at 1.7 / 1.8 … and I realize that I still have a lot of power and agency. And focusing on that, making sure that’s always where I point and orient myself – that’s been a real lesson for me and I hope it’s a lesson for others as well.
About how his vision loss changed his feeling about aging
I used to be extremely afraid of aging. I used to think, “Oh, you know, when I lose the ability to do X, I will become unstable. When I lose the ability to do Y, that will send me into depression,” because I just assumed that incapacitation would be the type of event one could not relax or turn in any positive direction.
I’ve seen through this challenge, the adventure – I now call it an “adventure” with my own eyes – I’ve seen that there are many aspects to losing something, to being limited physical side. I have found that you can be left with enough capacity and agency to feel completely whole and feel completely happy. And so when I think about what’s going to happen, and I know now more than ever that I won’t be able to predict it, I’m not as afraid of it as I used to be, and I accept it as just a part of the process.
I think people who’ve been through a vision phase like I was at 52, who were diagnosed with serious illnesses in their 30s and 40s, I think, in some ways, they get a course. accelerate and advance in the aging process, and they learn early on what we all eventually learn, which is… our bodies are time bombs, but each one explodes in a different way. different ways. However, what is certain is the explosion, and the other certain is that you control your reaction to it, in a way that can leave you with a lot of things and that can leave you with a lot of fun. .
Struggling with binge eating and how his relationship with food changed as he became an adult. New York Times 2004 restaurant reviewer
That proposal came to me at a point in my life when I just felt like I had hit a corner in my relationship with food, where I was healthy again after a period of terrible weight gain, where I am living. a style that feels disciplined and healthy. And somehow, I knew in a really counter-intuitive way that if I accepted the job of criticizing a restaurant and every day was about handling food, I would approach it methodically and sufficiently. aware that that would be the best recipe for not being undone by food. That was possible.
It’s hard to describe… but I ate probably the healthiest food in my life and all of that during the 5 and a half years when I was a teenager. New York Times restaurant critic than me before or since. I’m heavier now than when I ate professionally. … I ate regularly as a restaurant reviewer, but I ate nothing on my plate. And being a restaurant critic is about tasting, not eating. And that is, in fact, one of the often recommended ways to eat healthy. And so it helps you keep to a schedule and keeps you in a discipline that’s not too different from the advice of some nutritionists.
Sam Briger and Seth Kelley produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Laurel Dalrymple adapted it for the web.
