Where am I??

Can you imagine waking, opening your eyes one morning, stretching your body and feeling that something is not right? You look around. What is this place? How did I get here? That was me this morning. and the scary part was that I was in my own room in my own house. I knew that something recently had happened to me physically...my body felt pain....I searched my memory...and found it curiously empty and very very confused.

There is Something. Something with a capitol "S" looms...something to be dreaded. Something big. What is it?? WHAT??? I search the mind that seems to be not working and curiously empty this morning. I look around my room and examine each of the objects, looking for clues. for triggers to my memory which has abandoned me. I recall little tiny bits at a time. I remember that this is not the first time that I've woken blank , with nothing but the present in my experience. Where was I the last time? It was not long ago. I was in a hospital. Is THIS a hospital? Am I crazy again? NO, the room is too personal, too disorderly and too packed with belongings to be a hospital room. What hospital was I in? And is that why my body does not seem to be right? not obeying commands and hurting with every move I make?

It dawns. I had surgery. Why though? I test my body trying to focus in on the source of the pain. There seem to be several...but I knew that the searing back pain was a "standard" (at least I know that much)...It is my hip. They both hurt. But then I remember ...the left one had just been replaced.

Now I know that I'm in my room.
What is this DREADED thing coming?? Why the weight on my heart which I could feel despite the absence of memory?

I see the Valentine's Day card on the shelf at my side. I pick it up. NOt signed. Then I remember my daughter's laughing voice saying she couldn't bring herself to sign it because it was too perfect. My daughter. The pain on my heart intensified.
She is leaving. Soon.

AS I recalled this, and slowly the details of that piece fell into place... carefully put it aside to be considered later ...after I solved the rest of the mysteries around me. What happened yesterday?? Where was I ? What did I do?? Was I with anyone?? These questions remained...and did not dissipate until later I confessed my ignorance to my daughter and her astonished and worried voice said, "MOM, that was YESTERDAY. Yuu don't remember YESTERDAY??" And no, I really really didn't.

And still there were questions. I picked up an object on my desk. It looked familiar enough that I knew it was mine. But what was it?? Where did I get it?? I opened it and looked at it carefully, and the answer did not come for several lost minutes. It's my Kindle. the one I got in early December...two months ago. I'm getting frightened now. More frightened than I was at first, waking with no past and no future. Now I'm thinking things like, "How HOW will I manage to survive and care for myself with my child/woman gone? Getting dressed was beyond me. Doing ANYTHING was beyond me. I need her. I need her to care for me. To explain mysteries like my yesterdays. How can she be leaving me. NOW??

Terror grips me.
There is something wrong with me. Something bad. Something more than forgetting a word. Something more than losing my keys.

I then recall the ECT...and how I used to wake up from it feeling like this. the "where am I?? " WHO am I?? questions that would terrify me and propel me off of the stretcher in mad fear.

But that was a while ago.
Years.

I've had horrible problems with short term memory loss since then.
But I'm afraid. These mornings of total history erasures are becoming more frequent. More total.

Something is very wrong.