‘Amy Remembers’ A Trauma Tale
On an unremarkable August Monday in 2009 I was feeling a little bit queasy and thought about going home. I started going out of the building down two long hallways.When I reached the front office I looked into the main office and said to Sandy; “I don’t feel well …” But that’s all I got out. I collapsed in the hallway, hitting my head on a metal doorway on the way down. I was in full cardiac arrest. Not breathing, heart stopped and a concussion as well, I was out. Someone ran over to me and said “he’s not breathing!” A 911 call went out and the first to answer was John Watson, a West Lafayette police officer who I happened to be right at the near corner. He rushed in and started doing CPR. He couldn’t get my heart started. But within a few more minutes the EMT’s from the nearby fire station arrived and started the CPR. Still no responses. I was rushed to the hospital and was brought in for life saving efforts. In all I coded three times before a heart beat returned. At St. Elizabeth hospital the lab was surprisingly open and available. Dr. George Brodel was able to put a stent in my heart and I came back to life. I had the infamous ‘widow maker’ yet somehow lived. I was later told that less than two percent survive this when they are not already in the hospital. A miracle! But of course I have no memory of any of the episode. It’s something that happened to me. It is miraculous that the place, the timing and the people came together to save my life. All these years later I still marvel at the fact that it has no internal meaning for me. A few years later I shared this with my therapist, George Dandrow and asked ‘ what does it mean if I have no memory of this catastrophic event in my life?! He took a moment and quietly said “Amy remembers.” Huh? Amy? “Your Amygdala” he clarified. This was before I had done any learning about my brain and body. He referred to the activating alarm in my brain that stores traumatic experiences forever. It is a reliable storage for emotional experiences, but recovering those to interpret their meaning is tricky. When you encounter an experience that triggers the amygdala, it may cause emotional reaction in the present, but it’s very hard to connect those dots. So while it was a full blown traumatic experience for me the memory details are lost to me. I am blessed and thankful for AMY. But Amy isn’t talking.