The Unread Chapters: Severe Brain Trama Blocked 46 Years of Long Term Memory. Just Who Am I?

By Indilyne (Lynn) Pinto

I have had a pencil clutched in my hand, writing poems since the first grade, or so Ive been told. At the age of ten, I was introduced to the basics of reading music and the keys on a piano by a preachers wife. By the age of twelve, I was on demand at every church possible in that tiny coal-mining town of Chapmanville.

I suffered severe head trauma due to a bike accident in 1964. I was gliding down a steep mountain roadway in West Virginia when the sprocket chain broke; I hit a car head-on. My long-term memory was blocked along with permanent amnesia of my years prior. The concussion embedded scars on my brain, with seizures that could not be controlled, and that is when the neurology department at UCF Shands Medical University Hospital took over. Year after year, the doctors tried various treatments and medicines, but to no avail, so the decision for brain surgery on March 1, 1995, was agreed upon.

The surgery was successful. Now my long-term memory is open, but I still have absolutely no memory of my life prior to that date, only three spot scenes, as you will find as the beginning to my book, The Unread Chapters.

My positive attitude, as shown in my writings, my ability to read and learn, and also my dedication to music have amazed doctors and my husband for decades. I do hope this story will amaze you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514401262

Indilyne (Lynn) Pinto

Indilyne Pinto Born on June 28, 1949, in Logan County, West Virginia. A Floridian since 1972.

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Copyright © 2015 by Indilyne (Lynn) Pinto.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 03/28/2016

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CONTENTS

Memory

Foreword: Brain Surgery March 2nd, 1995

Chapter 1: So Vivid The Scene: 1963

Chapter 2: The Note

Chapter 3: Now I’m Someone Else: 1967

Chapter 4: 28 Years Later: 1995

Chapter 5: My Health, My Body, My Mind

Chapter 6: The Unity That Saved My Life

Chapter 7: Leave No Stone Unturned

Chapter 8: Our Frugal Attempts to Unite

Chapter 9: Finally She Was Here, or Was She

Chapter 10: Now She Needs Me, I Hope

Chapter 11: The Dark Gray Sky of Winter

Chapter 12: The Days That Followed

Chapter 13: Then Six Years Later:

MEMORY

D o you know where we store memory? What gives us the ability to look back through time, perhaps decades ago and be able to envision every move, or what someone said? My story is based on a horrific bike accident that robbed me of a pleasure that most everyone takes for granted, memory. Multi scars had been identified from previous trauma earlier in my life but the doctors suggested that perhaps I should not look for the answers on exactly how my injuries were inflicted.

Following the bike accident, mid-summer 1964, at the age of fifteen, I was an individual plagued with epileptic, or ’blank-out’ seizures. Through time, the bouts continued to multiply in frequency and duration as the scars penetrated deeper and deeper in the front left temporal lobe of my brain. The one thing that baffles me the most about the problem is why no one, absolutely no one had noticed the staring spells and confusion, not even my parents?

The blank-outs were due to multi-scars that were embedded on various areas of my brain. The major areas were on the front left ‘medial temporal lobe’ of my brain, the area where the hippocampus area stores ‘long term memory’. The second scar was on the right side, or ‘parietal lobe’ which resulted in repeated or ‘psycho-motor’ seizures (repeated movements during blank-outs). The scar on the front left temporal lobe continued to penetrate deeper into the brain tissue triggering a continuous increase in seizure activity.

The unanswered question is why I cannot remember anything prior to the accident: had my memory been hampered only post (following) and not pre (prior); then why is my life completely, totally blank even before the accident. The daunting question is what were the actions or events that had inflicted the multi-scarring that had been exposed on other areas of my brain, the scars that were identified only as ‘older’ by the Neurological team in 1975?

Allow me to explain memory function;

The ‘medial temporal lobes‘—there’s one on each side of the brain—include an arch-shaped structure called the hippocampus and several adjacent regions that together perform the magical feat of turning our perceptions into long-term memories. The memories aren’t actually stored in the hippocampus—they reside elsewhere, in the brain’s corrugated outer layers, the neo-cortex—but the hippocampus area is the part of the brain that makes them stick. My hippocampus was blocked for long term memory, and without it I was like a camcorder without a working tape head. I was living, I was breathing, I was laughing, I was talented, but over 99% was not recorded for later reminiscing.

The mystery is that my learning, my ability to absorb knowledge, was not hindered, why? I just have no memory of when or where I had gained my abilities and talent. I was a Cosmetologist (my first profession) and yet I cannot locate the school where I had obtained my license. Absolutely no memory of receiving piano lessons, but five churches depended on me at the age of eleven.

Though scientists had known that there was a difference between long and short-term memory since the late 19th century, they now have evidence of the two types of memory that happen in two different parts of the brain. Without the connection the hippocampus area could not store a short-term memory into a long-term for later exploring & reminiscing. Where my talent and abilities were stored was due to the non-declarative memories that do not rely on the hippocampus region to be consolidated and stored.

Short-term memory: A system for temporarily storing and managing information required to carry out complex cognitive tasks such as learning, reasoning, and comprehension. Short-term memory is involved in the selection, initiation, and termination of information-processing functions such as encoding, storing, and retrieving data.

Long-term memory: A system for permanently storing, managing, and retrieving information for later use. Items of information stored as long-term memory may be available for a lifetime.

My amnesia, or blocked long term memory, may have begun in early infancy. This possibility is due to having absolutely no memory of my childhood, absolutely none.

But the bike accident, the concussion and the severe trauma to my brain could have brought about both "anterograde", cannot form new memory, and retrograde can’t remember old memory. Doctors have suggested that it may be best not to search for the answers, not to pry too deep into my past. What I may discover, the possible answers to unravel the mystery of my life may uncover things best left hidden, but I needed to know. Should I search? Yes, and I have.

Finding the answers does not stir hate, just understanding.

Tragedies and humiliations, these events, seem to be etched most sharply, often with the most unbearable exactitude, while those memories we think we really need—the name of the acquaintance, the time of the appointment, the location of the car keys—have a habit of evaporating. This is the reason for the few spot scenes that are as vivid as if it were yesterday I witnessed them, not forty or more years ago.

My husband of 40 years has allowed me to know my life without grasping for the long-term memory that is not there. With the help of our picture albums, multi pages of writings in my folders, along with his explanation of where we’ve been and what we’ve done together fills in those years that would have been void otherwise.

He has helped me to know what my life has been since we married in 1974, but it does not ‘stir’ any memory it just allows me to know who I have been, what we have challenged and what we have gained together. For me, it is like reading a book, stepping into another world and life, now you know the story but you were not there. I know about our adventures, our classic cars, the multi business’ we created, but to open the door to my past, to ‘peek’ inside, to do this alone is still impossible, even to this date.

Following fifteen years of research and study by doctors at the Florida Medical University in Gainesville Fl, Shand’s, major brain surgery was decided.

The surgery took place in on March 2nd, 1995 and with its success it opened the door to the left medial temporal lobe area of my brain. Still, to this day, I pray that never will that gateway into my long term memory be locked, or blocked again. The seizures I had been plagued with for decades subsided; finally I realized how long a day, a week, a full month of time actually was but the major thing still missing was my past, memories I longed for, my childhood family I continued to search for, to reach out to the longing to touch their hands. I was an adult determined to fill-in those blank years of my childhood, my family, my friends, everyone of long ago. With no memory I knew it would depend on those people who knew me at least back then.

Come; join me as I searched for the life, the years I have no memory of living. The answers I needed to find, the desperate longing to connect with my childhood home and family was plaguing my mind. I have no memory of my past but I still had a longing, a child’s longing to find her Mother, to get my Daddy back and especially to find and connect with my two sisters. Please let us touch hands again. I felt desperate to fill in those years I had lost; it feels like I was never there before.

The information about the brain has been gathered from various articles, studies and findings since 2001.

Indilyne E Pinto

FOREWORD

Brain Surgery

March 2nd, 1995

T he time is 5:30 a.m. and here I lay on a gurney staring straight up at the blinding lights that were embedded in the white tiles on the ceiling above me. I was transfixed, almost hypnotized by the speed the gurney was moving, I was on my way to pre-op. I noted that everything, absolutely everything around me glared white, the floors, the walls, even the dropped ceiling tile above me and dear God it was cold; it felt more like a morgue, the ending, not the beginning I was hoping for.

Suddenly I was startled by a young man’s voice, the one supplying the speed and direction of the gurney; ‘Would you care to speak to a minister or priest? I can bring one to you as soon as we get you parked." Those same words he had repeated twice already along with the question about what denomination would I prefer if I needed to speak to someone after my surgery, and as before I answered ‘no thank you’.

The mile long hallway suddenly ended with a sharp right hand turn as I was guided into a small room labeled ‘Surgery’. It was narrow in there but along the walls on the left and right side were seven other gurneys that had arrived ahead of me. Now we were facing each other yet no one was looking, no one uttering a sound. The silence surrounding me tightened my chest even more, making it difficult to breathe and to continue to think positive. Everyone in this tiny room, including myself, was facing major surgery of some kind.

Opposite the door I just entered there was one more set of swinging doors that I would go through; would it be the path to a seizure free life, or the complete loss of the left side of my brain? I had been warned of the slight chance of that loss but the probability had lessened due to advancement in Neurosurgery. Knowing my turn to be guided into surgery would be any time now, I decided to escape the fear that was building; I decided to focus on those bits of memory, those three spots that somehow I still remember. The scenes were few, so very few, but I wanted to look back just one more time, after all, it may be my last.

CHAPTER 1

So Vivid The Scene: 1963

T he leader of that tiny church remains very dominant in my mind, Brother Cecil. He was a handsome individual, even to me at the young age of thirteen. I would guess, even today, that he was in his mid thirties and in his glossy dark black hair not a single gray strand was showing. He was of average height; about 5’9", medium build, but the dark suit and white shirt, obviously stiff with starch, announced him as one with ‘strength’, the ‘leader,’ the person we needed to follow. His cuff links glistened as he extended his hand to grasp the hands reaching out to him. He delivered his gentle, warm smile to everyone as he gazed into their eyes, one by one. Everyone attending this church