CHAPTER 112:
DIANE’S AMNESIA
Diane’s P.O.V.
I opened my mouth, but no words came out of it. With how butterflies tingled my stomach from that memory, I could feel like my heart was exhilarating, pulses were racing, and everything was real. At the same time, I got frustrated—feeling unfulfilled.
Did I have a boyfriend, and it just happened that my mind had forgotten him?
But how?
My mind naturally stirred back into the present, but my heart looked like it dwelled in the past. It was trying to pull my inner self to remain in my trance. It was a good memory and worth keeping safe in my heart, but I wanted to fully remember it back.
“Diane?” The doctor called me, dragging me out of my reverie.
“Yes, Doc. If I wasn’t mistaken, t-they are my best friends… Karen and Lorenz?” I told the doctor as I dismissed the mentioned guy from my recollection. I guessed that my mind was remembering a few things I was not supposed to. I should not be stressing myself over those things, though.
My friends’ names automatically wedged into my brain, though I pronounced them inquisitively because I wasn’t really sure if my memory was correct. It was clear, but at some point, it was also distorted. It was making my head surge with bewilderment.
Just when I thought that all of my body parts were functioning well, it was quite ironic that the said accident seemed like it affected my brain. It was giving me hazy and vague memories.
The moment I replied to the doctor, Mom swiftly nodded with a smile on her lips. Her palms were clasped together as if praying that I would remember everything clearly. She was hoping that I could answer the additional questions Dr. Salvatore would be asking me.
“Hmm, okay. So… may I know about the last event that you could remember, Diane?” he stoically asked.
That made me slowly avert my eyes away from him and stared at nowhere like my family wasn’t even here. The corners of my eyes throbbed a little bit before I felt my fabricating tears and my fingers shakily grasped the white comforter sheet, pulling it towards me.
Seconds later, I couldn’t control myself anymore as tears were gushing down my cheeks. Fear gnawed inside me, and my whole body was trembling in anxiety. It felt like I was being crushed again, prompting me to become devastated.
My heartbeats were screaming dread, and I even attempted to suppress my breathing rate. After that, I slowly looked at my wrists for any marks of being tied upon. Swallowing real hard, I felt like a filthy and lost woman who would never be able to find her way back.
Does he really need to ask and know about that terrible thing?
“Diane, is everything okay? Why are you crying? Were you hurt somewhere?” Mom asked. She held my right hand, and I could feel her warmth.
Then, Mom reached to my siblings as she wanted them out of the room immediately. “Hmm… David, Denise, the doctor will do further tests on your sister, so you two should get out of the room first. Here, feel free to buy anything you want to eat.” Mom gave David a five-hundred-peso bill.
“But Mom! I would like to stay here. I—I’m afraid that big sis w-won’t remember me anymore if I would leave,” Denise argued, as she even hugged my legs and refused to let go.
“Denise, let’s go. Big sis will never forget about us, okay?” David, being the obedient son, pulled Denise away from me and helped her rise to her feet.
“No, please… I won’t leave her!” Denise whined.
“It’s alright, Denise. I won’t forget about you… I promise,” I assured her while slowly extending my right pinky finger, which she immediately knotted with hers.
“You better keep your promise, or else I would eat lots of shrimps to punish myself!” Denise threatened before she pouted her lips and joined her brother to leave. I could still remember how she was allergic to shrimps.
David was tensely glancing at me while holding Denise on both of her shoulders, pushing her from behind. I waited for the two of them to finally leave the room and closed the door before I feebly sighed.
That was when I fully sobbed in front of my mom, the nurse, and the doctor. I snuffled more, and the nurse gave me some tissues, from which I blew my nose.
“I—I was kidnapped and r—” I shrugged my shoulders before finding it hard to continue speaking for myself. I was hesitant to tell in front of the doctor and the nurse that I was raped. I felt ashamed.
“Sweetheart? D-Do you already remember that?” Mom asked while crying as she came closer to me.
With shallow breathing, I just nodded while tears kept on falling… until I wailed out loud. In just a few seconds, my face was covered with tears that the female nurse was wiping. At the same time, she was lightly rubbing my back up and down to help me ease the pain.
“Don’t stress yourself too much. It will only worsen your condition,” said the nurse. She was quick enough to give me some water. “Here, drink this.”
“T-Thanks,” I almost whispered.
“Wait, Mrs. Rivera. To help me understand more of what Diane is manifesting right now, may I know when did this so-called abduction happen to her?” Dr. Salvatore curiously asked my mom, whose attention was divided in between me and the doctor.
“I-It has been a long time, Doc. Actually, it has been four years already since someone k-kidnapped my daughter. Fortunately, D-Diane was able to get back home the next day.” Mom was stuttering. I knew how hard it was for her to bring back the past too.
So, does it mean… four years had already passed since that night happened? But why couldn’t I remember anything with regards to the recent four years? What did I do with all those years?
“But after almost a year, she had already forgotten about it and I thought that it would be better for her not to remember anything. So, as her mom, I never mentioned that to her because those memories would only bring her pain.” Mom paused for a while before she continued.
“Those memories would only hurt my daughter. Only now did she remember what happened, so I was a bit surprised too. The last thing I would have ever wanted was to hurt my daughter, Doc. Do you understand me? And it kills me that I wasn’t able to protect her during those times,” Mom stated, still with tears in her eyes.
The doctor unstoppably nodded as if he was already sure of my condition. His reaction was still stoic until he contritely pressed his lips into a thin line.
“Well, while we are still waiting for her additional lab results, especially her latest *MRI and *CT scan, I think…” Dr. Salvatore gazed at me intently before he confirmed my condition, “Diane is suffering from a **retrograde amnesia.”
Amnesia? I puckered my forehead.
“Well, amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or any psychological traumas. Retrograde amnesia caused Diane not to retrieve her recent memories before her accident two weeks ago,” Dr. Salvatore further explained before he continued.
“Hmm… I won’t be surprised now because Diane already had a history of this kind of amnesia. But this time, it was triggered by her **traumatic brain injury or skull fracture. I might not be present at the exact accident scene, but I was sure that it was caused by the same car accident she was in.”
“Diane might have struck her head into something that led her to suffer hemorrhage and contusion. The contusion is swelling of the brain, while hemorrhage is internal bleeding or blood clot. These are all technical terms, but I’m giving my best to explain in layman’s term.”
Dr. Salvatore was right. He was making it easy for us, but even though he was already clarifying the various medical terms here… I still couldn’t understand them completely. All I could understand was amnesia, and it was all about loss of memory.
“So, her first retrograde amnesia might be caused by her disturbing experience four years ago. Retrograde amnesia is a type of amnesia from which a person forgets events from the past month—or it could be from a year, or worse, even from a decade—before a tragedy or accident happened.”
The racing beats of my heart pulsated under my fingertips, for I held my chest because my heart appeared like it would want to come out of my chest. Dr. Salvatore ruefully looked at me before he turned to my mom to say the thing that would shock the hell out of me.
“With your daughter’s case right now, I regret to inform you, Mrs. Rivera, but unfortunately… Diane had lost the last four years of her memory, starting from the time she was abducted.”
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Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)* is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio waves to generate images of the organs in the body.
Computed Tomography (CT) Scan* is a medical imaging technique that uses computer-processed combinations of multiple X-ray measurements taken from different angles to produce tomographic (cross-sectional) images (virtual ‘slices’) of a body, allowing the user to see inside the body non-invasively.
Amnesia** is a loss of memory. The memory can be either wholly or partially lost due to the extent of damage that was caused. There are two main types of amnesia: retrograde amnesia and anterograde amnesia.
Retrograde Amnesia is the inability to retrieve information that was acquired before a particular date, usually the date of an accident or operation. In some cases, the memory loss can extend back decades, while in others the person may lose only a few months of memory.
Anterograde Amnesia is the inability to transfer new information from the short-term store into the long-term store. People with this type of amnesia cannot remember things for long periods of time.
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)** occurs as a result of any force that penetrates or fractures the skull areas which are susceptible during an automobile accident.
Trauma to the brain can occur during an automobile accident when the skull strikes, for example, an object like a steering wheel or windshield. There may or may not be an open wound to the skull due to the accident. However, in automobile accidents, the skull may not necessarily need to have been penetrated or fractured for a traumatic brain injury to occur.
It can cause bruising of the brain (referred to as a contusion) and bleeding (brain hemorrhage), which may not be visible at the time of injury.
[Source: Wikipedia]