A Momentary Lapse of Reason, a.k.a. Transient Global Amnesia

What's on your mind? Facebook asks. Well, funny thing is, my mind . . . is on my mind.

Monday I lost an hour. Was work, busy, had done five breaking news stories. I remember thinking suddenly that the time had really flown by, looking at the clock. Then I looked at the Trib website and saw my stories . . . and didn't recognize them. They were vaguely familiar, but in the sense that I became convinced that they were from a year ago, and that our flukey publishing system had somehow wiped out my work and replaced it with these others.

Yeah, kinda like that.

Steve Hunt, friend and editor, arrived. I told him what I thought had happened. He checked the stories, found them well-written (thanks), accurate and, more importantly, current. Noting my ongoing confusion at that point, he became concerned and talked me into getting checked out.

Off to the ER at St. Mark's. MRI, CT scans of the noggin, a bunch of tests and questions (who are you, who's president, what day and date is it, etc.) Then the horrible waiting.
My mother is in the end stages of Alzheimer's disease, so as I waited in the ER bed, I prayed it wasn't THAT. A stroke, even a tumor would've been preferable.

It was none of those things, Turns out I still have a fine lookin' brain -- no signs of stroke, tumors or, thank God, Alzheimer's. Diagnosis was "Transient Global Amnesia." Rare. Seldom reoccurs, and memories lost return. (They did, by the way, within 12 hours).

So, along with stress or blood pressure spikes (lot of the former, latter not a factor), migraine sufferers are at risk for TGA. (I have been plagued with them since puberty). Also, being over 50.

It's a scary thing, folks. But it also, generally, harmless and does not reoccur.
Still, the ER doc ordered me to rest the remainder of the week, do a precautionary followup with a neurologist (a panel of 'em is reviewing the scans, per protocol, and will decide whether to doing anything further soon (if something seems amiss the docs at St. Mark's missed), later, or not at all. Waiting to hear back.

So, when I saw the usual Facebook question, "What's on your mind?" I found that funny, ironically speaking.

But what had me laughing out loud today, as I listened to music at the condo complex poolside, taking the docs' orders to heart, was when I realized I had just mentally floated through Pink Floyd's album, "Momentary Lapse of Reason."

The Universe is a cosmic standup comedian, sometimes.

I had this thought, too, being a preacher's kid. Dad always used to preach that when God forgives our sins, he also forgets them. Forever.