You may also not remember anything about what's happening in the here and now.Your recall of recent events simply vanishes, so you can't remember where you are or how you got there.It's a sudden, temporary episode of memory loss that can't be attributed to a more common neurological condition, such as epilepsy or stroke.Much later in the evening after the CT scan revealed no stroke activity, the on-call head nurse said to Lola, "I think your mother has had a TGA episode."Ī what? A transient global amnesia episode, commonly known as a TGA. Any test possible to rule out a stroke, given my history. Blood tests, a CT scan, an EEG test, balance tests, urine tests, speech tests. Once I was in emergency, the tests started. But bizarrely, I see this all happening now in my mind as if it's my memories, because of what I was told happened. I still don't remember being in the ambulance, nor arriving at the hospital. Lola rode with me in the back of the ambulance, repeatedly answering my questions: "Where am I? Where are we going? What's happening?" They gave me aspirin as I complained of a bad headache and delivered me to Prince of Wales emergency around 6:00pm. Gently the ambos, who thought I was having a stroke, and my daughter Lola lured me into the ambulance. My daughter suggested I should change them for something more utilitarian and brought out some sensible Birkenstock sandals.Įither way, I knew hospital was the last place I wanted to be.
I was dressed for dinner, wearing my brand new, pointy toed, red suede, sling-back shoes for the first time. They decided to call an ambulance as I was clearly distressed and agitated, saying "Something's not right with me, something's not right." A ride down memory lane He met my daughter at the door and I introduced them five times over, as I knew they'd never met before and was mindful of manners. But he returned after a phone conversation with his sister in which she wondered if my confusion indicated I was having a stroke. He'd given me a book as he'd left earlier, saying, "I hope you enjoy it." Then my friend returned to my house very alarmed. Can you check up and see what's happening with her? She keeps phoning and repeating the same thing," they said.īy the time Lola reached my house, I was agitated and disorientated. After my fourth call, they phoned my daughter, Lola. I phoned some friends four times in 10 minutes to check on a dinner date that evening, saying, "I'm a bit confused. They worried that I was repeating myself, asking the same questions over and over. Not just mine, but those people closest to me. I had no recall of anything I'd been doing on that Sunday. And it could always be dialled up at will.īut in an instant, my memory was gone. Like a well-worn, much-loved suitcase at the back of the cupboard. One minute mine was there, just as it always had been. The Macquarie Dictionary describes it as "the mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving impressions, or of recalling or recognising previous experiences". I'd never asked this question until I lost mine. I only know what those people close to me told me happened. I've only got secondhand memories of the day in my life when my brain froze. I have no memory at all of what took place -and never will. What happened and why remains a total mystery to me. On Sunday, March 1, 2020, I lost my mind. Not just for a minute, but for an entire day.
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