A tale I’m sure you rather not have told, Max, but well told, those memories at least…
Doug
> On Jan 6, 2016, at 11:59 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> My Transient Global Amnesia
>
> Why did you fumble so long with the key
> in the door just now? she asked.
>
> Did I? I have no memory of this.
> In fact, trying to remember my outing
>
> (with our senior Lab), next to nothing
> comes to mind! I recall how far we got,
>
> about to turn for home, nothing after that.
> We’ve crossed through traffic coming home
>
> with me on auto-pilot, evidently.
> I think I’ll just lie down. Soon I stir,
>
> the wife is on the phone for advice,
> calls the ambulance, two nice men
>
> greet me, ask those questions they ask
> a confused patient and his carer.
>
> Yes off to Emergency with him.
> Goodbye doggies, patience now,
>
> till we get back. Emergency is
> still, alert, efficient. I stare at
>
> my boots, the dust shows where we went
> and I went blank. What day is it?
>
> That’s a tricky one - Wednesday, ah yes.
> Nothing comes to mind why today
>
> has brought on this small Absence.
> To prove it’s not a stroke, hours
>
> pass with various tests - reassuring.
> Goodnight, dear, be good to the dogs.
>
> Overnight, in a regular single room
> in the main building, tests roll in,
>
> or I roll out through a labyrinth
> to the MRI machine. Beware,
>
> magnets are on. Head in a clamp,
> masked, prostrate, I trundle deep
>
> into the cylinder, resolved not
> to give in to claustrophobia.
>
> Rattle, bash, clang, as if some
> blacksmith is lining up the magnet.
>
> On and on; the voice from afar
> promises it’s almost done.
>
> It’s done. Back into the wheelchair
> for Rico the orderly and the labyrinth.
>
> His friend had said ‘I’m a survivor
> of the worst out in the street, I can
>
> cope with any hospital test.
> No, says Rico, he panicked.
>
> I feel quietly proud.
> I love the morning’s nurses:
>
> getting my heart beating up
> on the ultrasound screen;
>
> the sound of my blood pulsing
> as if swishing in a goblet;
>
> checking each neck artery in turn,
> proving they work their best for me.
>
> We think this man can go home soon.
> They feed all the test-results into
>
> my computer file. Talk it over
> in a few days with my primary-care-giver.
>
> Meanwhile start on this new medication:
> one per day, a baby aspirin.
> Still wondering what Global may mean.
>
> [as already mentioned, I’m aware.
> and no, Patrick, global doesn’t refer to you.
> M in Seattle, feeling OK -
> as are others who tell me how common it is]
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
Done in by creation itself.
I mean the gods. Not us. Well us too.
The gods moved into books. Who wrote the books?
We wrote the books. In whose dream, then are we dreaming?
Robert Kroetsch.
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