Memory: Crash victim who wakes every day thinking it’s 1994
EVERY morning when Michelle Philpots wakes up, she thinks it could still be 1994.
In a remarkable echo of the film Groundhog Day, she has lived the same day over and over again for 16 years – with no recollection of what happened even yesterday.
As soon as she leaves her house she forgets where she is going.
And if she arrives at her destination – with directions carefully jotted down on Post-it notes – she has no idea what she went there to do. After suffering head injuries in two road crashes, she has no short-term memories since 1994.
She even has to be reminded by husband Ian, 46, that they are married. He shows her photographs of their wedding day in 1997. She said yesterday: “I can really relate to the film Groundhog Day. It’s like I am living the same day, day after day.
“I love to watch EastEnders but if I’m reading the magazines showing what happens in upcoming episodes, I have no idea what is going on. I can’t remember the characters or any storylines – I just know I like it.”
She jokes that the only benefit is that if she has seen a TV show before, it never feels like a repeat and she finds the jokes funny all over again. Every day she fights to cope with her condition by using Post-it notes and reminder alarms on her mobile.
Anything she has done is completely forgotten by the time she wakes up the next morning unless she writes it down immediately. She rarely leaves her home town of Spalding, Lincolnshire, and uses sat-nav to go to the shops half a mile away.
Michelle, who volunteers at her local disabled charity, was diagnosed with epilepsy 16 years ago, triggered by brain injuries she suffered in a motorbike crash in 1985, then compounded by a car accident in 1990.
It came to light when at work one day she repeatedly photocopied the same document all day. To prevent seizures she had surgery to have brain cells removed at London’s National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in 2005. She says: “I know I can’t have my old life back but sometimes my house becomes my prison.”
Husband Ian, a fencer, said: “The only thing I can do is be patient. I get frustrated but I keep calm because I love her. I am lucky we met before she had the accidents because it means she can remember me.”