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

[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...

[resonant]

Or maybe in some of us and not in others?

As various people in our families lose their hearing, I'm noticing that there are two kinds of hard-of-hearing old folks. The first kind say, "Excuse me?" or "Say what?" or whatever, but the second kind mis-hear you in the most ridiculous (and often lewd) way imaginable, and sometimes get kind of aggressive with you about the awful thing they're quite sure they just heard you say: "She wasn't wearing any WHAT?!" "Um, Dad, I said she wasn't there."

[sara]

Hee hee hee, I am one of the latter. You would not believe the things I hear come out of people's mouths. I assume this is due to sheer filthymindedness, though. So maybe your Dad is a perv.

[resonant]

This would not surprise me one bit, but I wish he wouldn't be so astonished and outraged by it.

[riverlight]

Oh, that's absolutely true. Good point. I watched one of my grandmothers turn very sweet in her senility—very "oh, look at how beautiful the trees are!" and "let me hug you!" all the time—and I am also watching my dad get more difficult and meaner as he gets older, and the contrast is startling. Note to self: stay flexible and learn now not to be the mean aggressive oldster!