Crazy Adventures in the ER

Two days after my 24th birthday, I lost my mind.
It started on Thursday when I got back from work and realized I had no recollection of the past 5 hours. I called my dad and told him what was going on, and understandably, he thought I was just drunk. If only. I ended up in the ER at the hospital down the road for six hours, of which I have little memory besides telling Rob repeatedly to get in the hospital bed with me and when I spoke with my dad on the phone, I told him I was there because I had an "abnormally large schlong" that was causing problems. I remember being really scared when Rob said "Do you want me to leave the room when the test results some back?" That's when it clicked for just a second that I might be in serious trouble. I was discharged around midnight, when I guess the doctors thought I was either getting better or they were just sick of all the homosexual innuendo in my room.
I don't remember coming home from the hospital, but I know I then kept waking up every 20 minutes and seeing ER discharge forms right next to my bed. Each time I'd open up my computer and look at the page describing global transient amnesia, which was the preliminary diagnosis. But then I would immediately forget and 20 minutes later, I'd wake up again and see those discharge papers. I had no idea what was going on. Apparently I knocked on Rob's door at 6 am with the papers in my hand and without a clue in the world. The ER doctors had thought I was improving and would be fine in the morning, but they couldn't have been more wrong.
Rob said I was no longer joking around Friday morning, although when he asked me to write any sentence on a piece of paper, I did write "I love Rob's Boner." Scott came over to bring me to the primary care doctor. At this point, I had no idea where I was, what my phone number was, where I lived, I may have known my name. I remember being in the doctors office, sitting on the table while Scott read a magazine. Scott left and my cousins came to take over "Watch the Crazy Guy" duty. My mind was mush, but I knew things weren't going well. The first hospital had not done thyroid tests and since my only medical condition is a hyperactive thyroid, that was, well, not good. They couldn't get in touch with my thyroid doctor and things were not even close to improving so they send me straight back to the ER. This time to a hospital that actually had some clue as to what they were doing.
Most of the day is a blur, and while I couldn't remember the year, where I lived, how old I was, members of my family...I did distinctly know that it was a serious situation. I had two ER bracelets on my hand and I looked at them constantly. The newer one said "PRE ER" on it, and I thought for sure that meant I was about to be wheeled in for surgery at any second. I also knew that my mom was on her way down, and that registered as a sign that things were not going well.
They put me through every test, every machine, possible in the ER. I had a cat scan, mri, chest scan. I remember being put in the changing room to put a gown on for the mri and looking in the mirror. I did this for a few minutes, but I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing. I recognized myself, but my head on was not on this planet. In the mri tube, I heard all of these weird noises and I had something in my hand I could squeeze if I needed to come out. But I was totally out of it, I don't know if they had me on sedatives or something, but I just laid there motionless, opening my eyes every few minutes when some strange noise would rattle my brain.
Back in my room, I could see the nurses out in the hall and I kept hoping they wouldn't come talk to me again. They kept asking me if I was going on a trip soon, obviously referring to Korea, but I had no clue and I responded "No" to pretty much everything. I could tell from my bracelets that it was just a couple days after my birthday, so I remember thinking maybe I had done something crazy to celebrate and destroyed my brain. Lauren called at one point and while I recognized the name, I had no clue as to who she was. I may have picked up the phone, but I immediately handed it to my cousin.
When all the tests came back fine, there was nothing more they could do for me at the ER, and although I was still in a daze, I remember being very very happy to be leaving that hospital. I fell asleep on the couch at my cousin's house and when I woke up on Saturday morning, I said, "I'm back."
I need to see a neurologist tomorrow and hopefully he'll concur with the hospital that it was this transient global amnesia which obviously scares the shit out of everyone involved, but has no long-term effects. And it only occurs again over the next year in about 4 percent of people who get it.
I'm so glad this happened on June 22 instead July 22, because if it happened a month later, I would owe the rest of my life's earning to hospitals. I had no plans to have health insurance from mid-July until I left for Korea. Sure, I'll still have to pay $500 or so in co-pays, but I don't even like thinking about how much I'd be in the hole if I didn't have insurance.
My grandmother told me that maybe this whole incident was God's way of telling me that I shouldn't go to Korea. I think it was his way of telling me just the opposite.