‘[Man] is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.’ —La Bruyère
My brain tumor introduced itself to me on a grainy MRI, in the summer of 2009, when I was 28 years old. […]
Over time I would lose my memory—almost completely—of things that happened just moments before, and become unable to recall events that happened days and years earlier. […]
Through persistence, luck, and maybe something more, an incredible medical procedure returned my mind and memories to me almost all at once. I became the man who remembered events I had never experienced, due to my amnesia. The man who forgot which member of his family had died while he was sick, only to have that memory, like hundreds of others, come flooding back. The memories came back out of order, with flashbacks mystically presenting themselves in ways that left me both excited and frightened.
