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Technically, you don’t need to be so creative every day if she can't remember what you've done before Imagine waking up every day, thinking it’s the same day – but you have no idea at all that you’ve spent 16 years feeling this way. Your husband has to constantly remind you of your wedding day, and by the time you drive the half-mile to the store, you cannot remember what you’re there for… Let’s first meet the fictional counterpart Lucy Whitmore, an art teacher in Hawaii. In the movie 50 First Dates (2004), which stars Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, our female protagonist is afflicted with an extreme form of amnesia, which causes her to lose the previous day’s memories. This fictional Goldfield Syndrome was brought on by a car accident one year ago. As with all feel-good movies, the couple find a way to end up happily ever after despite the obstacles they face.
The day Michelle can’t remember Six years after the movie was made, researchers found a real-life sufferer of this rare type of amnesia. Welcome to the life of Michelle Philpots, a British woman who has suffered from anterograde amnesia since 1994 – a condition where she cannot retain the memories she has newly created since then. Like Lucy, Michelle developed this condition after a road accident – but Michelle’s was the compounded effect of a motorcycle accident in 1985 and a serious car crash in 1990. By 1993, her condition had deteriorated until the 47-year-old had to leave her job in a solicitors’ firm because she photocopied the same document over and over the entire day. This was not mere absent-mindedness – Michelle also suffered from fits until she underwent an operation in 2005 to remove dead and damaged brain cells. Before I get too far ahead, let’s take a short break for a science lesson before the above information is wiped clean from your short-term memory. The affliction Michelle has, anterograde amnesia, is usually brought on by the use of certain drugs, or in her case, a traumatic brain injury which probably affected her hippocampus or its surrounding tissue.
No! Not this! Before you start to visualise hippopotamuses on a school campus, let me assure you this part of the brain did not derive its name from undergraduate hippos. It is actually the combination of two Greek words: “horse” and “sea monster” as that part of the brain responsible for memory resembles a seahorse. How’s that for some weird science?
Well… Not quite, but almost (Ignore the hippo and focus on the blue area of the brain) It’s indeed not easy to live with Michelle’s memory disorder – what with needing constant reminders or forgetting the day she was married or even not being able to hold a proper job. She still struggles with acceptance of her condition and has even described her house as being her prison. Even her loving husband, Ian, whom Michelle has known since 1985 and wed in 1997, finds her condition frustrating but he sticks it out with her through thick and thin. Thumbs up for his amazing patience!
Right… Oh, what was that again? What’s admirable about Michelle is she doesn’t dwell in depression but instead volunteers at a disabled charity three times a week. It also helps that soap reruns and old jokes are always as awesome as the first time. She copes with her condition by liberally sticking Post-It notes on her fridge, creating many reminders in her mobile phone, and using a GPS system when driving in the neighbourhood she’s lived all her life.
Mr and Mrs Philpots on the TODAY show in August this year Sounds pretty much like what some of us do, only to a much greater extent. However, here’s something she’s one-up on us. Bet most of us have never appeared on television, much less a talk show before! Read more on Michelle Philpots here and here. |
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