rockin'robin
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"Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us," Oscar Wilde wrote. But what about when that diary is inexplicably erased?
Amnesia, or memory loss, is a rare and little-understood medical condition that happens to have -- perhaps because it is so mysterious -- great imaginative appeal. What would it be like to wake up and not know who you are? To not be able to recognize friends and family?
Kayla Hutcheson, 19, knows the answer to those questions, although they are difficult for her to articulate. She was struck with amnesia after bumping heads with a teammate at basketball practice in late October 2008. Her memory loss, especially in the beginning, was nearly complete.
Family vacations, high school graduation, holidays were all gone. All the little memories that make each of us whole were deleted from her mind like from a ruined computer hard drive.
"I wish it would all come back, actually," Hutcheson told "Nightline" during a recent visit to Washington's Walla Walla Community College, where she is a student. "When we'd be sitting around friends or something, be talking about what they did as a child -- I just sit there, 'cause I don't know."
The first day of kindergarten? Or elementary school?
She shakes her head.
Her family?
"I don't remember doing stuff with them, but I do remember them … well, just the ones I've met, my brother and sister and my parents -- I don't remember my real mom."
Like so many of life's tragedies, it happened out of the blue -- during a simple basketball practice.
She ran into her teammate Jeni Gabriel. The two banged heads.
"I looked at her right away, and I said, 'Are you OK?' and she said, 'Yeah, I'm fine,' and we continued playing," Gabriel recalled.
Apart from a bloody nose, Hutcheson seemed just fine.
But later that night, at home with her teammates, she started acting strange.
"When Jill finally started like, asking her questions, that's when we realized that she didn't know anything," said teammate Nancy
Johnson, 18. "She didn't know our names, who we were, where she was, what her name was, how old she was, who her dad was. She didn't know anything."
They took Hutcheson to the emergency room, where she was X-rayed and examined. According to her roommates, she was told she had a concussion -- nothing more.
ABC News spoke to several of the nation's leading neurologists. All of them thought Kayla's case was exceptionally rare and in need of a great deal of further study.
"You generally do not get a loss of information about the world, about words, factual information from a concussion or even from a moderately severe head injury," said Dr. Kenneth Perrine of the Northeast Regional Epilepsy Group at the Weill-Cornell College of Medicine.
Hutcheson described the emotional impact of her injury.
"Not so much angry, just more frustrated," she said. "I am sad and, like, because there's a lot of great people that know me, and I don't remember them."
Her teammate Nancy Johnson, there from the beginning, wrote a poem about her lost friend, a 19-year-old struggling to find herself again.
"Kayla, are you in there, the girl I once knew? Now we are both strangers, our familiarities few.
"Kayla, you are next to me but your mind is gone. When will you come back to me, please tell me how long?
"Kayla, I love you, please don't ever forget. My name is Nancy, I am glad we just met."
For her part, Hutcheson strikes an upbeat tone when asked about her future.
"I want to go on and play basketball, and be a physical therapist," she said. "Hopefully the memory will come back."
If it doesn't, Hutcheson has new memories -- memories drawn from pictures of her, living a life she can't remember. It's like another class to be endured. Call it History of Kayla, 101.
Mystery of Amnesia: Daily Life for Teen - ABC News
Amnesia, or memory loss, is a rare and little-understood medical condition that happens to have -- perhaps because it is so mysterious -- great imaginative appeal. What would it be like to wake up and not know who you are? To not be able to recognize friends and family?
Kayla Hutcheson, 19, knows the answer to those questions, although they are difficult for her to articulate. She was struck with amnesia after bumping heads with a teammate at basketball practice in late October 2008. Her memory loss, especially in the beginning, was nearly complete.
Family vacations, high school graduation, holidays were all gone. All the little memories that make each of us whole were deleted from her mind like from a ruined computer hard drive.
"I wish it would all come back, actually," Hutcheson told "Nightline" during a recent visit to Washington's Walla Walla Community College, where she is a student. "When we'd be sitting around friends or something, be talking about what they did as a child -- I just sit there, 'cause I don't know."
The first day of kindergarten? Or elementary school?
She shakes her head.
Her family?
"I don't remember doing stuff with them, but I do remember them … well, just the ones I've met, my brother and sister and my parents -- I don't remember my real mom."
Like so many of life's tragedies, it happened out of the blue -- during a simple basketball practice.
She ran into her teammate Jeni Gabriel. The two banged heads.
"I looked at her right away, and I said, 'Are you OK?' and she said, 'Yeah, I'm fine,' and we continued playing," Gabriel recalled.
Apart from a bloody nose, Hutcheson seemed just fine.
But later that night, at home with her teammates, she started acting strange.
"When Jill finally started like, asking her questions, that's when we realized that she didn't know anything," said teammate Nancy
Johnson, 18. "She didn't know our names, who we were, where she was, what her name was, how old she was, who her dad was. She didn't know anything."
They took Hutcheson to the emergency room, where she was X-rayed and examined. According to her roommates, she was told she had a concussion -- nothing more.
ABC News spoke to several of the nation's leading neurologists. All of them thought Kayla's case was exceptionally rare and in need of a great deal of further study.
"You generally do not get a loss of information about the world, about words, factual information from a concussion or even from a moderately severe head injury," said Dr. Kenneth Perrine of the Northeast Regional Epilepsy Group at the Weill-Cornell College of Medicine.
Hutcheson described the emotional impact of her injury.
"Not so much angry, just more frustrated," she said. "I am sad and, like, because there's a lot of great people that know me, and I don't remember them."
Her teammate Nancy Johnson, there from the beginning, wrote a poem about her lost friend, a 19-year-old struggling to find herself again.
"Kayla, are you in there, the girl I once knew? Now we are both strangers, our familiarities few.
"Kayla, you are next to me but your mind is gone. When will you come back to me, please tell me how long?
"Kayla, I love you, please don't ever forget. My name is Nancy, I am glad we just met."
For her part, Hutcheson strikes an upbeat tone when asked about her future.
"I want to go on and play basketball, and be a physical therapist," she said. "Hopefully the memory will come back."
If it doesn't, Hutcheson has new memories -- memories drawn from pictures of her, living a life she can't remember. It's like another class to be endured. Call it History of Kayla, 101.
Mystery of Amnesia: Daily Life for Teen - ABC News
