Spevak: What happened to three hours of my life?

Imagine three hours of your life disappearing. That’s what happened to me recently in a strange but benign experience.

In late June on a Wednesday afternoon I drove my wife Sandy to Emanuel Women’s Center in Turlock so she could have several routine tests done, including a bone density test. After I dropped her off at 2:30, I parked my car in the adjacent Emanuel Medical Center parking lot under a big shade tree.

I have done this dozens of times for both Sandy and my sister Joan after driving them to medical appointments. This day was warm but not excessively hot. And there was a nice breeze blowing through the car windows. Around 3 p.m. I talked with my daughter-in-law Marisa on my cell phone.

At 4 p.m. I received a text from Sandy telling me she was finished with all the tests. I didn’t text her back, so she called me. I answered, and she said she was ready to be picked up.

I asked her where. She said the same place I dropped her off. I responded, “Where’s that?” Then I added, “There’s something wrong with me. I don’t feel right. I don’t know where I am.”

Recognizing I was confused, she recruited a nearby hospital nurse to drive her to our car. Since she didn’t know where I parked it and I couldn’t tell her exactly where, she asked me to honk the horn until she found me. I did as I was told and honked the horn numerous times.

She found me, thanked the helpful nurse and then walked me over to the passenger seat. She drove me to the front of the hospital, explained to a person at the door what was happening and was quickly directed to the emergency room entrance. When we arrived, I reminded her to turn off the ignition before we left the car.

She told me to walk with her into the emergency room entrance, which I did. She was guiding me, and I suggested she hold my hand. When she squeezed it too hard, I asked her to hold my hand less tightly.

When we walked into the emergency room, my situation was quickly assessed. I was reclothed in a hospital gown and taken for a CT scan, after which I was wheeled back on a hospital bed into the ER area and then presented with a man on a TV screen. It was a neurological doctor asking me questions via Zoom. It was now about 5:30 p.m.

The video doctor asked me a number of questions, asking me, for example, to repeat several words back to him. I was generally unsuccessful in answering. Several times during the conversation I kept asking, “How did this happen? How did I get here?” Eventually, after 7 p.m., I started to answer some of the Zoom doctor’s questions correctly.

The video doctor suggested I be given a medication that could bring me back to reality and be sent home, but there was a danger of it causing a blood clot. My wife Sandy, after conferring on her phone with my son Michael, said no. The doctor said the only other option was to admit me into the hospital for further tests. Sandy said, “Do it!”

The strange thing is that the many events I just described --from the honking of the horn to most of my conversation with the video doctor--I have no memory of, not immediately thereafter or ever since.

In the hospital I was realizing now that I was in a gown, not the clothes I had been wearing. And I was in a hospital bed. Soon I was wheeled into room 203 of Emanuel Hospital.

My wife Sandy was with me the whole time. The only way I could report what happened to me between 4 and 7:00 p.m. is what she told me had happened. Sandy also told me that from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. I seemed groggy and not completely coherent. But at least I remembered most of what was happening then.

In the hospital room I was gradually returning to normal. A hospital doctor had directed that I wear a heart monitor, but I felt fine. I had no other signs of an event—just the temporary loss of memory. Now I was trying to reconstruct what happened, thanks to Sandy’s narration.

I can say unequivocally it was a strange experience. Physically, I had functioned normally. I just didn’t remember what I had been doing for three hours.

The next morning a hospital doctor visited me in my room and told me that the CT scan the afternoon before did not show any problems, but today (Thursday) I would have an echo-cardiogram of my heart and an MRI of my brain.

She also said I needed to have the heart monitor on for 36 hours, which meant I would spend another night in the hospital. A sonographer then came to my room and conducted the echo-cardiogram. Later I was wheeled into the imaging center and given an MRI. Afterwards, I was observed by physical, occupational and speech therapists.

On Friday morning the same doctor visited me again and told me all the tests came back negative. There was nothing wrong with me, except that I had experienced a strange event. And now I could go home.

She told me the best hypothesis was that I had experienced either a TIA or a TGA. Together she and I pretty much ruled out a TIA (Transient Ischaemic Attack) since I had none of the symptoms that usually accompany a TIA: no temporary paralysis, no numbness, no slurred speech.

The best guess was that I had TGA (Transient Global Amnesia). According to the Cleveland Clinic website, “Transient global amnesia (TGA) is a rare medical condition in which a person experiences a sudden episode of memory loss. During a TGA episode, a person cannot form new memories and has difficulty recalling recent memories. TGA episodes usually last no more than several hours.

“People with TGA,” the website adds, “remember who they are and can remember their friends and family members. They can still perform complex daily tasks, such as cooking or driving. They also retain their language and social interaction skills. However, during a TGA episode, they may not know where they are or the day or time.

“TGA occurs in approximately 3 to 10 people out of every 100,000 people,” the website continues. The exact cause of TGA is unknown. In most cases people experiencing TGA recover completely and there is no relation to possible future dementia.

“When the episode is over, people who had a TGA can form new memories,” adds the website “but they won’t remember what happened during the episode. Any other recent memories generally return within 24 hours.”

When I read this, I said to myself, “Yep, that’s me.” As I think this through, I’m 98% sure I had a TGA episode. I’m grateful that’s all that it was. I compare what I experienced to three hours of either sleepwalking or undergoing hypnosis.

Since a TGA rarely recurs, I’m not too worried about it happening again to me. And I may never know definitively what caused it. However, since two of the possible causes are dehydration and low blood sugar, I’m going to make it a point each day to drink more water, eat more fruits and vegetables and not go too long without eating (good practices for everyone).

I also plan to slow down, reduce the number of tasks in my day and don’t hurry to get them done.

I’m hoping none of my readers experience a TGA. Even though it’s not painful or serious, and the odds are you won’t experience one (99,990 people out of 100,000 won’t), it is indeed strange.

However, dear reader, if you (or someone you know) has an experience of daytime sleepwalking, recognize you probably had a TGA. And understand you shouldn’t worry about it but consider it a “message” to take even better care of yourself.

John Spevak wrote this for the Los Banos Enterprise. His email is john.spevak@gmail.com.