Open Writing

The aging experience has spawned volumes of articles, and enough books to fill a few good sized libraries. Many of them focus on health topics, especially diseases of the brain – Alzheimers, Parkinsons, the cause and effects of stroke etc. - possibly because those are the illnesses that frighten us the most. Not to say that cancer and heart disease aren’t just as scary, but somehow they are more tangible; more available to take action against or to come to terms with.

Illness that can jeopardize our very being, but is not necessarily life threatening, has very different ramifications, not the least of which is that we may not be aware of how much our persona is being affected as the condition progresses. This differs from physical illnesses where we are likely to be acutely aware of our decline, and indeed of our recovery.

Recently, I experienced a personal episode that brought the subject of cognitive awareness into sharp focus for me. My wife had left the house for a few hours to attend an art class, which presented an opportunity for me to concentrate on my writing. Not that Sandra consciously intrudes on my “quiet time,” but I have never possessed strong powers of concentration, so I am often too aware of even the smallest activities around me.

When Sandra returned, around four hours later, she called out to me as she came into the house, as she normally does. As I often do, I met her at my office door, and, according to her, looked confused. For my part, I felt as though I had been awakened from a deep sleep. My behavior was apparently abnormal enough that she sat me down and asked me a number of questions about the recent past. She also asked me to perform the tests recommended for stroke: stick out my tongue, smile, raise and lower my arms, etc., all of which I executed normally.

I was disturbed to learn that we had sold our boat in Connecticut, and had returned earlier than normal to Florida as a result, though, as she quizzed me about that experience, the memory of it returned. More troubling was that initially I had no recollection of what had transpired while she had been away, nor was there anything on my computer to provide a clue. It was as if I had immediately gone to sleep as she left the house, and during the entire period of her absence had remained sleeping in my office chair.

I’m fairly sure this wasn’t the case because the chair is on a swivel base, and is not overly comfortable. Therefore, based on past experience, I would not have been able to maintain an upright sitting position while asleep, and the discomfort would have wakened me. A sliver of light shone on my episode when we discovered an unwashed glass by the sink that contained traces of orange juice, stained dark red.

Seeing this, I remembered feeling thirsty, and making myself a drink of orange juice with soda water and a dash of red wine. So far, more than a week after the incident, that is the only recollection I have of a period of three or four hours.

In the days since then I have monitored myself as closely as I can to detect any additional lapses, as has my wife, and we are not aware of any. Anecdotally, my short and long term memory appears to be intact, though precise testing might reveal otherwise. One possible explanation for the experience is that I may have suffered a transient ischemic attack.

These are caused by the temporary blockage of blood flow to an area of the brain, usually due to a blood clot. As the name suggests, the symptoms are short lived; minutes or hours, but can recur. However, I suffered none of the other symptoms of ischemia: numbness, dizziness or slurred speech, though I do have a history of blood clots.

A more likely explanation is that I experienced a bout of transient global amnesia. There is apparently no known cause of this phenomenon, but it is more common among people who have migraine. Although I have not experienced a migraine attack for many years, I was a chronic sufferer from my teens to my fortieth birthday. Precisely at that time the attacks stopped.

Do I worry about the recent incident? Not too much. Will I seek medical help? Not unless I experience a recurrence. I figure that going to the doctor with a condition that is no longer evident is like taking your car to a repair shop after the mysterious noise has stopped. But I have to say that having such an attack has given me a small insight into what malfunctions of the brain can do to ones sense of wellbeing.

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