What you forget

[resonant]

A co-worker of mine recently, for no reason anyone has been able to identify, lost four hours of his life with a brief bout of what they call Transient Global Amnesia.

He can't tell me anything about what it was like, because he says it was like a bubble: while he was inside it, he apparently couldn't remember anything outside it; once he was out of it, he couldn't remember any of it happening at all.

His wife tells him he was very sweet and loving while it was happening, and in a very docile way cooperated with everything she asked him to do and believed everything she told him -- with one exception: he refused to believe her when she told him how old he was. He wasn't sure how old he actually was, but, damn it, he was quite sure he wasn't 68!

Comments

[pun]

This makes perfect sense to me. I knew I was getting old when I started uttering the phrase, "But I don't feel any different!" Which is what my mother used to say to me when I told her she was old.

A much younger co-worker said to me that she basically still thinks it's 2005, and I said I basically still think it's 1998. I realized that we both basically think it's the year we were 19-20.

[riverlight]

That is absolutely fascinating. Reminds me a bit of Jill Bolte Taylor's experience of feeling utterly euphoric while having a stroke; the existentialist in me wonders if there's sweet and gentle and loving about our fundamental nature, somehow...

[malnpudl]

I can appreciate that. The calendar swears I'm 54. I'm not sure I'll ever feel older than maybe 35. Well, physically... but not at heart.

[dira]

Thank you for procuring these useful facts for future amnesia-fic! *g*

[isilya]

My experience of amnesia (anterograde) is that it is as utterly complete as general anaesthesia. When I sleep I am aware that time has passed, but anaesthesia is a wrinkle in time. Ditto for amnesia.

[wrabbit]

Interesting!

[emeraldsword]

That's both fascinating and frightening. Love that he refused to accept his age though - there's something particularly funny about that!

[bonspiel]

A friend of mine was telling me recently about the time she had a bad concussion after getting hurt playing hockey - apparently when she was in the hospital, she just kept on telling the same joke over and over when people told her she wasn't remembering anything. According to her husband and friends who were there, she said the same joke over 80 times. Her memory just kept on getting reset every couple of minutes and she kept on doing the same thing each time.

[bottledminx]

I worry about living in a Truman Show-esque life, and now I am going to worry about losing time and being alone when it happens.