The Day I Forgot Everything
Transient Global Amnesia - a weird case of memory loss
21 January 2026
When I woke up on 24th July 2025, I thought it was going to be a routine, uneventful day. How wrong I was. It was going to be one of the weirdest days of my life. It would be the day when I forgot... everything.
That's not quite true. I do remember getting up, and having breakfast. We were on a family holiday trip to Northumberland, and we were staying in an AirBnB house in the middle of Hexham. We'd had a bit of a lie in, and it was maybe 9:30am when I ate my cereal. I then checked my phone to see if there were any emails. There was one - an important contact had cancelled a meeting with no explanation. I was a bit annoyed. And then the next six or seven hours were a complete blank.
The next thing I recall from that day is lying in a bed at Newcastle Royal Infirmary. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon.
My wife was sat by the bed, and asking me questions. "Do you know where you are?" "I think we're on a trip to Hexham" I replied.
"What day is it?" she asked. "I don't know." "It's Thursday - do you know what's happening in the Test match?" "Oh, if it's Thursday - the Test match will be beginning today!" I replied. "Actually the match started yesterday," she said. Apparently I'd followed the first day of the cricket avidly online, but at the moment I could remember nothing about it - though with prompting, details began to come back. "England versus India...Old Trafford...India had good first day, England only took four wickets".
The ward doctor came by. "We want to give you a CT scan, we want to rule out a stroke," she said. "We might also want a lumbar puncture, in case this is meningitis." Eek, I didn't want one of those.
Eventually I went for a scan, and was also told they'd like to keep me in overnight for observation. The family did a great job of lining me up with my favourite snacks and drink, and I was taken to the ward, which I shared with about five others. By now I was feeling fine, and slowly my memory was coming back. I could remember pretty much everything - except for what had happened between 10am and 5pm.
I had a good night's sleep, the CT scan was clear, there was no need for a lumbar puncture, and when the consultant came around at breakfast time, he said I was OK to leave.
The diagnosis? By process of elimination, they had decided that this was a case of Transient Global Amnesia.
"It's not common," said the consultant, "but I probably see three or four cases each year".
"What's the cause?"
"Nobody knows. There are a few things that can trigger it, but we don't really understand it. All I can tell you is that it usually lasts a few hours and is harmless. It might happen to you again one day, or this might be the last time it ever happens."
I'm told that while I was in the middle of my TGA, I was still able to function in the moment. I could walk, eat, answer questions, knew my name, but would just be a bit confused - like somebody with dementia. A big clue that something was seriously wrong was that I didn't know the name of the President of the USA. I'm told I wasn't in any way upset. It was the people around me who were stressed. Understandably, they were wondering if this was how I'd be for the rest of my life.
So there you have it. If you want to spend a night being looked after by the NHS when there's nothing wrong with you, then a bout of TGA is about as good as you can get. But I don't recommend it - it could really freak out your family.
1 of 7 Older