My Life Has Become a Less Freaky Memento

 

For several years I have had issues with short term memory--recent conversations, for instance, plans I've made with others--as well as  with dizziness and, sometimes, fainting. Since moving south I've attended a memory clinic suggested by my doctor, and have taken tests.

One such test was an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), a nonsurgical procedure that produces a detailed image of an organ, in my case my brain. This was intended to see if I was suffering from traumatic or other brain injury. In the results I was given before my diagnosis, it was noted I had a ganglia on my left hemisphere. I knew this already, having been given the information from a previous MRI from a few years ago. I had even mentioned its existence to the technicians in relation to their questions about anything I might know was already there (e.g., lesions, metal plate). 

Now, my big fear was that I was experiencing the first symptoms of the sort of dementia from which my father died (in fact, when I had been told about the ganglia's location, my wife and I understood it was in the same place as one found in my dad's MRI). I was somewhat comfortable with this possibility, assuming that my dementia, like his, would be fast-acting but otherwise peaceful. My father was one of those people for whom the dementia made him more himself, in his case, more patient and calm most of the time. 

My appointment for my diagnosis was postponed for a day because the Nurse Practitioner in charge of my results was ill. As a result, my anxiety, already heightened, became nearly unmanageable for 24 hours. I woke early, did some stretching and tai chi to ground myself as best I could, but went in with a blood pressure reading almost off the charts. The NP and medical social worker, once they found out why I was anxious, told me right off that dementia was actually off the table. I had done much, much better than I expected on the memory test: the top score was a 30 and I had reached 27 (I never found out what those were points of), a score reached by people who had, at worst, "some" memory issues. "Where have I left my keys?" "Why did I come to the kitchen?" that sort of thing.

This is not my brain or MRI

So I was relieved until the NP turned back to her notes and said, "But now, tell me about your stroke." 

I don't recall saying anything although I might have because my ears were stopped up by the sound of blood pumping through my veins. When I did answer, I gurgled something along the lines of "Stroke? I had a stroke?'

The ganglia on my brain, she explained, was a holdover from an "old stroke" that I might have had decades ago. (It was later explained to me an "old stroke" is any over two years, and isn't to worry about because whatever damage done had happened long before.) Had I ever had periods of weakness on one side, or face-drooping, or long loss of consciousness?

No, never, I said. At least not that I remembered. 

I was the only one who thought that was funny. 

Over the course of the next hour and change, and over the next couple weeks, I would find that a) it is not unusual for someone to be unaware he or she has had a stroke; there are about 11M of us. And b) unless doctors have a pre-stroke MRI to compare it with, unless symptoms occur, there's no telling when the stroke happened. I do not have a pre-stroke MRI handy, so I'm left with racking my brain for memories of stroke behavior. I find none. 

And c} the fact that I had no indication I had a stroke means that the brain area affected was not "important", it wasn't responsible for motor skills or balance or speech; the duties of whatever was affected were easily taken on by another area. Something like a full professor falling ill and a teaching assistant filling in for a class.. 

However, my doctor pointed out to me that I had suffered a loss; the effected area was in charge of short term memories. Like recent conversations or plans. 

When I was teaching writing, I used to show the movie Memento to classes. Because it's filmed "backwards", it's a perfect way to teach cause and effect by stopping it at different points and asking "Why did that happen?", letting them guess before running the "previous" scene that explained why Leonard, the protagonist, reacted the way he did. My life is currently a less extreme version of Memento. I don't need Leonard's "freaky tattoo" directions on me, but I do have to make notes about where I go in the future and why.