Woman goes to hospital with headache and wakes up with no memory of past 30 years
When Louisiana grandmother Kim Denicola visited her local hospital after complaining of severe headaches in October 2018, she had no idea that her life would soon turn completely upside down.
She was attended to by medical staff after she also reported suffering blurry vision while at her Baton Rouge bible study group, but nothing too out of the ordinary was suspected.
It was only when Denicola woke up in the hospital emergency room some hours later that doctors would be handed one of the most complicated medical cases of their careers.
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That's because when she awoke, the 56-year-old grandma claimed she couldn't remember anything from the last 30 years.
In fact, Denicola believed herself to be a teenager living in the 1980s when she came around in the hospital ward, and had no recollection of having gotten married to her husband or welcoming her two children with him.
Speaking to WAFB, Denicola - now 60 years old - claimed: "I’ve lost a lot of Christmases, so it’s a big deal.
"It’s unbelievable to me as it probably is to other people. Never in my wildest dreams did I get up and go to bible study and think I’m going to wake up in the hospital and I’m going to be 60 years old."
Upon waking up, Denicola was blown away to discover the invention of computers, and had no idea that her home country's leader has changed hands a multitude of times since the 1980s.
She recalled a nurse asking her: "'Do you know what today is, what year are you in?'. I said, 'Yeah, 1980.'
"And she said, ‘Can you tell me who the president is?’ I said, ‘Yes, Ronald Regan.’ And she stopped."
"TVs are now smart. The TV I remember was a box that sat against a wall that we had to get up and go change the channel," she continued.
Following the baffling health scare, Denicola was subsequently diagnosed with extensive amnesia, known officially around the world as transient global amnesia, or TGA.
Doctors are still unable to determine the exact cause of her condition, however, despite having carried out extensive tests and scans.
According to the National Library of Medicine, TGA often occurs during periods of 'particularly strenuous activity, high-stress events, or coitus, but it can be seen with migraines'.
They add that the memory condition is often a temporary event and can reoccur, though death is extremely rare.
And five years on, Denicola has still not recovered any memories of the last 30 years, with medics being afraid they might never return.
"They told me, if by now I haven’t gotten it, then I probably won’t," she told the publication.
She's luckily rekindled her love for her husband, however, and watched her children grow up through her stories and pictures.
She told press: "I may have lost my memories, but guess what? We can make new ones."
Rhianna Benson