THE DAY MY BRAIN EXPLODED reveals Ashok's experience surviving extreme, near-fatal brain trauma in 2000 -- namely, a massive subarachnoid hemorrhagic stroke.

The incident was caused by the sudden, orgasm-induced explosion of an unknown arteriovenous malformation (AVM) hiding in his brain.

AVMs are rare, congenital birth defects, affecting less than 1% of the population.

From brain-aneurysm.com: "An AVM is a site of abnormal connectivity between arteries and veins. It is basically like a tangle of worms, where the greatest concentration of worms in the central portion of the AVM (this part is the "nidus") is made up of abnormal blood vessels that are hybrids between true arteries and veins. AVMs are fed by one or several arteries, and are drained by one or more major draining veins; these feeding and draining vessels may be unusually tortuous (winding like rivers), and unusually large."

AVMs might be rare, but traumatic brain injury in general, or TBI, is hardly uncommon, afflicting millions of Americans yearly. Some astounding statistics:

-5.3 million people in the U.S. live with a disability caused by TBI.

-TBI-related deaths exceed AIDS-associated deaths and affect more people annually than AIDS, breast cancer, and multiple sclerosis combined.

Yet TBI research receives far less funding.

Although Ashok is still alive, the massive hemorrhage has left him with life-long blindness in half of both his eyes, epilepsy, erratic amnesia, and distorted hearing, among other deficits.

His permanent bisected-blindness is called homonymous hemianopsia, or hemianopia. It is the condition in which half the field vision is gone forever. In his case, it is the left side, since it was the right side of his brain which hemorrhaged.

Hemianopsia can affect one or both eyes.  In Ashok's case, it has affected both eyes.