About two weeks ago I found myself in the hospital with my wife, and asked her how I got there. In fact, I asked her that question a couple of dozen times, according to her. I had experienced something called Transient Global Amnesia.
Transient global amnesia (TGA) is a sudden, temporary interruption of short-term memory. Although patients may be disoriented, not know where they are or be confused about time, they are otherwise alert, attentive and have normal thinking abilities.
Unlike patients experiencing dementia, TGA patients keep their personal identity, consciousness and the ability to perform complex routine tasks. During the episode, however, patients are unable to form new memories.
Episodes of TGA are generally brief and although the effects are temporary, the patient often does not remember anything from the episode.
In my case it apparently started sometime around noon on Monday, May 15. I was at a local theater helping my wife with her school production of a play she was directing, and started acting slightly strange. For instance, I went across the street to get some lunch for myself, but didn’t ask her if she wanted anything. (She and a friend who was with us didn’t realize this was one of the early symptoms until after I was released from the hospital.)
To all outward appearances, I was behaving more or less normally, but I have little or no recollection now of that afternoon and evening, only small snippets. For instance, I later recognized the face of the woman who took my lunch order, but I don’t remember the ordering or eating the cheeseburger sub that is listed on the receipt I found in my pocket. I don’t remember most of the work we did that afternoon hanging lights for the show but I apparently did it all more or less normally. I drove myself home from the theater.
That evening I started behaving more uncharacteristically. When asked what I wanted for dinner, I was indifferent. I took a bite of pasta, but said I didn’t want anything to eat after a busy and active day. I was unusually apathetic and unresponsive. (All this is according to my wife and the friend who was visiting to help with the show. I have no memory of any of it.)
They began to worry that I may have had a stroke, and took me to the hospital. While there I had an CT scan and other tests that I don’t remember. I couldn’t say what the date or month or even the season was (I said it was September) or who the president was.
While I was in the ER room with my wife, I repeatedly asked what had happened and how I had gotten there. I recounted several times over a similar incident from nearly 50 years ago, when I had been in a car accident and while waiting to be seen in the ER repeatedly asked my sister, who was more badly hurt that I was, what had happened, until she angrily said, “Shut up!”
My memories of that evening begin somewhere around midnight, about two hours after I was brought in. I realized that this happening just a few days before the show was a terrible blow (I was lighting designer and operator) and although I begged her to go home and get some sleep, my wife loyally said I was her top priority and stayed with me the whole night. We tried to think of who we might get to take my place if I had to stay there a few days, and talked over other ways to ensure that the show would go on.
I was able to get maybe an hour or two of sleep, but my wife, who has never been able to sleep sitting up, got essentially none.
At around six a.m., the doctor came in and said that the tests had ruled out a stroke or any other serious brain issues, which left TGA as the most reasonable explanation. It is not known what causes it, and usually it does not recur or foreshadow any other serious issues. Apparently about 99% of cases are in men. So they released me.
We went home and I slept for about two hours, although my wife could not sleep. At around 10 a.m. we returned to the theater to carry on with setup and rehearsals. That evening, my wife and our friend explained to me everything that had happened leading up to their taking me to the hospital, and we got to bed early.
In the end, neither she nor I missed any rehearsal time, and the show came off beautifully (for a middle school production). Fortunately, my little episode had virtually no effect on the show.
The worst part, my wife told me, was how worried she was that something serious had happened to me, and that there might be some long-term effects, until they explained TGA, and that the situation was basically a one-and-done. It was a tremendous relief to both of us, but mostly to her. I feel terrible that she had to go through that.
So that’s what amnesia – at least one form of it – is like in the real world.
