Finished up with the neurologist today. They went looking for brainwaves with the EEG on Tuesday morning at the hospital. It took an hour. We had to get all the electrodes attached to my head. The technician demanded that next time I come back I should come back without all this hair. Guess I made her life difficult. She also told me how she found me. She came out of the hospital elevator at 4 o’clock in the morning. Judy and I were sitting in chairs outside the elevator bank because my room was uninhabitable (think sick people). We said Hi. She said Hi, and walked on by, pushing her machine. A few minutes later she came back.
“Mr Taylor?”
“Yes.”
“I went to your room. You weren’t there. I asked at the nurse’s station and they said you were out for a walk. I asked them “You mean that old white guy that looks like Santa Clause?” and they said “yeah”. She was my EEG technician.
This was a more extensive EEG than I’ve had before. Just as I was settling in to fall asleep, she made me hyperventilate. I had to do hyperventilate breathing for three minutes without stopping. I did. Hell of a buzz. Once I got comfortable again, she told me to open my eyes and look at the ceiling. Thus began the strobe-light-torture phase. I think she was trying to break me, but I didn’t crack. I never revealed a thing. After that she let me fall asleep, then woke me up to point out on the screen when I started to doze and when I fell asleep. That was it, except for part where she had to rip off all the electrodes she had stuck onto my head.
Got the results back at our visit with the neurologist today at his office. Nothing. No trace left behind. They went looking for brainwaves and actually found some, but no other junk, so the news couldn’t have been better.
The conclusion? TGA, Transient Global Amnesia. It wasn’t a stroke. It wasn’t a seizure. It isn’t Alzheimer’s. It was most likely TGA. Probably a tiny bit of plaque broke off into the bloodstream and blocked flow to my brain momentarily. Whatever, he said once it happens, it rarely happens again. I’m done. No further examinations or treatments. No reason to expect a recurrence.
It’s all good.
