Real-Life Memento and Happy New Year
| Hi dear friends,
It was Dec 26, 2001. I am very sure. The day I will never never forget and shao po, my dear husband, can never remember a thing. For a moment, I thought our life would never be the same. It was at Northstar Ski Resort, Lake Tahoe, CA. Partly cloudy, snow condition, according to the news, is the best in two decades. Shao po and I arrived early in the morning and started our first ski this season. We soon found this place is perfect for us, challenging enough but not dangerous. After a couple of warm-up runs on blue lines, we were ready for black diamonds where you can find real fun. As crowd was getting bigger, we moved to the other side of the mountain which offers very long run with no traffic. I finished my second run of Sierra Grande and expected to meet my snowboarding husband, who is usually ahead of me, at the lift. For some reasons (it got to have reasons!), he was not there. Five minutes later, he showed up like a cool teenager with his snowboard. Everything looks normal except he had a big fall, he explained. Before the lift reached the top of the hill, I realized the brain underneath this familiar face was not functioning the normal way. Shao po had no idea where we were, why we were skiing and what day it was—– but thanks Gods, he knows who I am. I tried to provide him basic information for the hope to restore his temporary memory file but, like a computer lost its save function, none of these got to stay in his brain. The next minute, he repeated all the questions with the same level of enthusiasm. He was very eager to know what happened.
So as you can imagine, an anxious wife (unfortunately a role peng peng had to play )seek help from ski patrols. It took less than a minute of “conversation" for ski patrols to realize this poor guy had lost his short term memory. Shao po did not seem to lose his regular analysis ability for he figured out what went wrong and came up with the conclusion “for sure I lose my short term memory, this is like Memento, the movie". Only that he repeated his clever conclusions at least a hundred times for the rest of the day.
The ski patrols were quite shock for what they had witnessed and gave shao po some oxygen. Lenny, a very kind patrol who later even thanked me for giving him the chance to learn the case, decided to sled him down to the First Aid. Watching my dear husband wrapped with blankets, yellow plastic sheets, lying flat on the sled with only two snowboard boots exposed, I have to admit I wished I had my camera. This is all too weird. The scenes of Memento kept flashing in my mind on my way down to the First Aid. No, this is not happening to us, I shouted from my heart.
At the Northstar First Aid, a doctor called Paul talked to Shao Po and did a couple of simple exams. Paul is the greatest doctor I have ever met. Not only he is incredibly friendly and helpful but also he told me this is a very common case: minor concussion. Even at the critical moment like this, Shao po did not give up using his existing data base and asked the doctor if he should get a CAT SCAN. Dr. Paul was quite amused by his patient who kept retrieving his own knowledge from his injured brain and made a self-diagnose. Dr. Paul later explained to me: like getting drunk, there are pleasant drunk and ugly drunk; there are also pleasant concussion and ugly concussion. ‘Your husband is having a pleasant concussion,’ he said. Oddly enough, Shao Po heard that and said to Paul ‘Thank you, even I don’t know what you are talking about and who you are.’ My husband did not forget his manner.
‘What day it is?’
‘Where are we?’ ‘What happened to me?’ ‘Why are we here?’ ‘Where are we staying?’ ‘ Do we come with friends or by ourselves? ‘ ‘How did we get here?’ ‘ Why do we come skiing?’ ‘Where is Tara (our puppy)?’ It took no time for me to learn things will be easier if I just wrote all the answers on a piece of paper. Unfortunately, Shao po, a typical skeptic, often needed to verify the answer. When I told him to look for the answers on the paper, he questioned ‘it said 12/26/01 here, but how would I know it’s true?’ (Sometimes I have to agree that all skeptics will go to hell after they die.) He sensed his dear wife was somehow not very patient so he better studied the facts by himself.
While we were waiting for CAT Scan in Trukee Hospital, the nurse assigned a sick bed for us. Having being interrogated for hours, I was actually the one lying there , feeling exhausted and frustrated. Shao po, looking at his ‘fact sheet’, was like a student trying to solve the world’s most difficult math equation. For those who knows Shao po well, this could be the most absurd scene.
The result showed no bleeding and no fracture. The doctor said he just needed some rest and should gradually recover in a day. But he will never remember the day his brain got injured. Again, th doctor was looking for signs of improvement by asking some common questions. ‘ What day is it?’ Still he had no idea after hours of hard study. The last question asked was a challenging one: ‘Who is the current President?’ After five seconds, the data came out of his mouth with a bit of hesitation ‘George W. Bush.’ The nurse and I were both very exciting. Memory is a strange thing. People sometimes remember things they want to forget.
I felt much relieved after leaving the hospital with positive results. The task was then reduced to deal with a husband with a slightly injured brain who still insisted that I should give him a brief about what happened every other 5 minutes. (Not even the war against terrorists requires such frequent briefs.) After being asked the same question a hundred times, I became unsure about my own answers. ‘Is today Dec 26?’ ‘Why are we here?’ ‘Are we here by ourselves?’ I asked myself.
Finally we got the chance to eat. The normal situation would be my dear husband would not only conduct a conversation with me but also, at the same time, he has to follow the conversation of the table next to us like a spy. It was definitely not the case this time. Still holding tight to his fact sheet, Shao po forgot what he ordered right after the waitress left our table. However, this was not his major concern for he was again trying to learn what day it is and why we are here——–
A couple hours of sleep seemed to help slightly. Even he could not remember what day it was, some recent memory started to surface: Xmas Eve dinner at our friend’s house, Tara is at Planet Pooch, two eggs and bacon for breakfast, recent company event, stock price———– We had a late dinner at the hotel, this time, he remembered what he ordered. The food was OK but I felt like that was the best meal in my life. Next morning, as soon as I opened my eyes, I asked Shao po ‘what day is it?’ What exactly happened to Shao po on that run remains a mystery. Dec 26th, 2001 was still a blank file for Shao po. To me, who tries so hard to remember every detail, that day was too real, maybe even surreal. However, I would like to say Happy New Year to all my dear friends. Thank you for all your friendship which is safely stored in the center part of my brain and will very unlikely be destroyed unless a severe concussion occurs. peng peng |
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