Forgetfulness

[vaneramos]

From the hall window yesterday, 4:37 pm.

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In March 2003 I lay in a hospital bed recovering from a second round of surgery to repair an accidental injury to my gut. The pain was intense, so I had been given a pain pump to deal with it. Pressing a button allowed me to take a small dose of morphine whenever I wanted it, up to a certain limit. I needed a considerable amount to make myself comfortable enough to sleep, so I would press for more during the evenings.

One night I awoke around midnight. My memories were completely gone. I couldn't remember who I was, where I was, or what I was doing there. If I hadn't been so sedated, I would have had a fit. I lay in a dark ward with the door open. I could see the flood of pale light over the sheets where my feet stuck up at the end of the bed. Whose feet were they? Why was I in pain? I lay there for some time trying to piece things together.

The first recovered strand arose from anxiety and family dysfunction. I thought that my parents, who are deeply mistrustful of drugs, would find out about this and try to take me out of the hospital. I sensed the hospital was the right place for me. Then I remembered I had brought a list of my friend's phone numbers. All I had to do was remember who the names on that list belonged to.

Soon I remembered the name of the nurse on duty and buzzed for her. She came and spoke kindly. By then I realized this was an effect of the morphine and would wear off quickly. I just wanted someone to talk to because it was frightening. She kept me company for a little while. I used the pain pump as little as I could bear until my head cleared. By 3 am I had my identity back.

It was, without comparison, the most terrifying experience of my life. I feel sorrow for people who, because of cancer or other painful illnesses, must fade out of life that way, not knowing why, or who their loved ones are. I dread that kind of death.

Today in the Globe and Mail I read this fascinating article, "Marooned in the moment," about people who suffer from amnesia (it should be free to read until December 13; I have printed a copy of it). It describes our three levels of memory. The episodic memory, the autobiographical details of our lives, is most vulnerable to damage. Reading the article, I experienced a creeping realization that I have always had difficulty with this level of memory.

I can recognize people I knew years ago or remember how to get from place to another, familiar facts. But trying to recall a conversation seems harder for me than most people. To learn how to do something, I must repeat it over and over until it is recorded in the deeper explicit memory system. I cannot remember from one year to the next how to drain the water line at the cottage. I can't even prepare my favourite recipes without instructions, though I may have made them dozens of times before. It's easier to refer to words on a card rather than trying to dredge up old memories of how I've done things. Improvisation is nearly impossible.

Like the people interviewed in this article, I can hardly remember movies a week after I've seen them, or books that I've read. Discussing or writing about them immediately afterwards improves my recall. On the other hand, I could tell you the sequence of events in a novel I read repeatedly as a child, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; that, apparently has been consigned to the explicit memory system, too.

I don't know how I managed school. I have an IQ of 143, which probably helped. I easily grasped conceptual ideas like calculus and colour theory. But history gave me more problems than any other subject, details I could only learn by tedious repetition, or more often by cramming immediately before a test and then losing it all. In university I started running into problems memorizing the names of appendages on all those marine invertebrates. Why on earth did I choose biology as a field of study? Nothing could have been more difficult for me to learn. I balk at the prospect of trying to learn an employable skill; I'll forget anything unless I repeat it ad nauseum.

I'm not as bad off as the people interviewed for this article. I know what has gone on with my life, generally. But ask me to remember one conversation I had in the past week, and I would by hard pressed. Last night I sat in the -bar for a few minutes alone with Jon before others arrived to play euchre. I have to start framing the incident in its context: Christmas is coming, we both have children, I hadn't seen him for a couple weeks. On that basis I can infer what our general topics of conversation must have been, and then I remember he invited me to a party on New Years Day.

I'm not sure what this means. Memory problems are symptomatic of depression and anxiety, but this pall of forgetfulness even hangs over the periods of my life when I was not depressed. I believe this is one of the difficulties I have with relationships: that I have trouble gauging where I stand with people because I can't remember conversations. This thing is the worst. Sometimes when I get busy with something and don't have time to communicate regularly with my friends, I forget that I'm even connected. Then I start to panic.

Keeping it simple helps. Somehow I manage that with Danny, my daughters and a few close friends.

I love writing because the words lie there on the page in front of me. Often upon having recorded an incident I will read it over and over, that way it becomes part of my experience. I love seeing the images play again through my mind's eye, in complete accord with the prose.

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I worked on today's post a lot longer than has been my recent custom. It seems important. I think I need to devote more time to rereading my old journals and email.