Acute Memories After Brain Injury: Quinn Part Ten
One of the least connected of the dots in identifying brain damage related amnesia is the role emotions and adrenaline play in the islands of memory in a sea of amnesia. With acute memories after brain injury, the more emotionally charged a memory, the more the amygdala helps the hippocampus imprint that memory from short term to long term memory circles. Likewise the more adrenaline involved in an experience, the sharper the focus, the more acute memories after brain injury are that is otherwise a foggy mess. Quinn’s recollections of bits and pieces of memory on his readmission to the hospital show clear evidence of the the acute memories after brain injury and the emotional role in memory formation.You were hospitalized at the initial hospitalization for seven days and then home for how long?
Twenty-four hours, 25 hours.
And your hydration levels got so extreme that quickly that you started to show declining neurologic function?
Yes.
Then they took you back and you went to Bethesda Hospital?.
Yes.
Quinn’s Acute Memories After Brain Injury
You only remember bits and pieces of being at Bethesda.
Correct.
What acute memories after brain injury do you have of being at Bethesda?
I remember, I remember being taken there and I remember I had to take a piss, unbelievable and they had me tied up to the gurney and I kept asking them before I got onto the ambulance could you untie me. I got to piss and they kept just looking at me because it was coming out gargled, but I could hear, like I was thinking it. I got to go to the bathroom. Please undo me.
But it was coming out wrong and all the way to the hospital and now I’m on the gurney in the hospital waiting to go for a CT or MRI or something and they gave me a urinal or something that, a bottle and just put it, positioned it. Maybe he’s got to pee and I guess I threw it at my wife and mother-in-law a bunch of times. I only remember throwing it at her once because she said she’s got to pee and left the room and I started screaming and yelling and ra, ra, ra, ra.
So, I remember bits and pieces of that and throwing the bottle at them and, you know, let me go and I was still tied up but.
What are your acute memories after brain injury that are the most emotional part of this? The most anger part of it?
I guess. I, you know, I mean, when they finally figured out maybe he’s got to pee, on the way back from the MRI or whatever, they let me go to the bathroom. They had to carry me into the bathroom and they held me up and let me pee. I slept like a baby the rest of the night and it was amazing. I mean, I don’t remember that part but as far as memory in the hospital, I remember again the second stay.
I remember some people seeing me. I don’t remember others. I remember one doctor saying that I’ll never skate again and I almost, I turned, you know, she got me out of bed and said take three steps and, she said, you know, you’ll, I’ll never get to skate again and I wanted to rip her head off. I remember that and then I remember the nurse writing the date down and, you know, thinking where did the end of the month of February go.
Next in Part Eleven: Skull Fracture and Cold of Rink Reduced Brain Damage
By Attorney Gordon Johnson
800-992-9447
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