Amnesia from the Inside Out by Sarah Raplee

www.medicalnewstoday.com

A funny thing happened…eight days ago as I was getting ready for bed. My husband and I were staying in a hotel room overlooking the thundering Deschutes River in Bend, Oregon. As I walked from our hotel bathroom to our bed……
I lost my memory.

          The last thing I remember is reaching for the doorknob to open the bathroom door. My husband, Chuck told me later that I walked to the bed and lay down, saying “I don’t feel very good.”

          When he asked me what was wrong, I told him I didn’t know. I looked around and asked him where we were. That’s when he went into medical mode. He’s a former Emergency Medical Technician. 

CALL 911

         Chuck checked me for signs of stroke, but physically I seemed fine. Mentally, I had forgotten much of the past four months of our lives. I also seemed to forget the new moments as soon as they passed. I knew who I was, I knew who he was, I could name my children and grandchildren. I knew where we lived in the western foothills of Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. But I asked Chuck the same questions over and over, each time forgetting I had asked and he had answered only a moment before.

I had no idea why we were in a hotel in Bend where my mom, sister and brother-in-law lived. I didn’t remember that we had rented a truck. I didn’t remember we’d spent the day loading the truck with furniture and other items Mom had left me when she died in December. I couldn’t tell Chuck what had happened December fifth, the day Mom passed.

I don’t remember any of that clearly, just a confused jumble of snippets of memory.

I do remember how shocked I felt when he asked me if I remembered our daughter was in jail (for the first time in her life!) I couldn’t believe it. She had been in jail for almost a month. In that moment of clarity, I knew I’d lost my memory.

St. Charles Medical Center Bend

After a few minutes of assessing the situation, Chuck decided to drive me to the nearby hospital.

I was in and out of the memory-making business for hours. During this time, I felt “in the moment” as never before. And so vulnerable, because who knew what I said and did since the last memory? What if this was permanent? What would I do? Who would I be? How much of consciousness depends on memory? How much of one’s identity? How much of one’s essence?

I remember climbing up into the sixteen-foot long Penske truck to go to the Emergency Room. I don’t remember the drive. I remember getting out of the truck and walking through the emergency room doors…I remember being on a gurney wearing a hospital gown and having two young guys with the same name in the room. (Don’t remember the name.) One of them took my vitals. The other tried to find a vein to draw blood. He seemed to be in training…

          Some time later, I remember a kind doctor telling us that he was sure I had Transient Global Amnesia, something he’d encountered multiple times in the ER. There is no treatment. He said doctors don’t really understand what happens to cause the rare illness, but having a history of migraines may have something to do with it.

Physical or emotional stress are suspected triggers. Luckily, patients recover their ability to make memories within a day and I seemed to be recovering quickly.

I told him I had gotten migraines since I was a teen.

Chuck grinned and said, “This is about the fifteenth time you’ve said that.”

          Now I wonder how many times the doctor patiently explained my condition to me. And how many other memories are gone forever.

          The doctor ordered blood tests and a urinalysis to check for an infection, and a CT scan to rule out a stroke. After about four hours, he cleared me to return to our hotel room to get some rest. I still didn’t feel quite right somehow, but I was functional. I’d also recovered the memories of events from before I got sick, thank God. I felt somewhat optimistic.

          We drove three hours home that afternoon. By the time we arrived, I had a nagging headache. (Headache, nausea and dizziness are common with this type of amnesia.) Our son’s family helped Chuck unload the truck.

          The next day I had a bad headache all day. By the third day, the headache was gone. I was pretty emotional for a couple days. For five days, I slept longer than usual and had some trouble focusing.

Sarah Raplee

Now I seem to be back to a new normal, having permanently lost most of my memories for part of a day, and knowing what having a rare form of amnesia is like from personal experience.

It seems ironic that I’ve been writing a heroine with amnesia in my sequel to BLINDSIGHT. I hope I can use my experience to better understand Sophie, although her amnesia is much more extreme than what I experienced.

Feel free to ask questions! ~Sarah