Wendy Mitchell - Somebody I Used to Know: A Memoir

It happened again the other day. This was nothing like before. It was much, much worse. It wasnt a word lost from the tip of my tongue; it wasnt an absent adjective, a vanished verb. It wasnt getting up from the sofa and padding into the kitchen in slippers, then forgetting to bring back the cup of tea Id just poured myself. It wasnt running upstairs for something and then reaching the top step and not for the life of me remembering what it might be.

This was totally different. This was totally blank.

A

big

dark

black

hole.

And the worst thing was, just when I needed you most, you were gone.

I am running along the path by the river with an impending sense of something I cant put my finger on. It has lingered for a few weeks now. More honestly, a few months. How can I describe it? Perhaps that in itself is why I havent been to the doctors, why I havent mentioned it to anyone else, not even my daughters. How are you meant to describe these things? My head feels fuzzy, life is a little less sharp. What use would that generic description be? It would be better not to waste my GPs time, and yet I know theres something, an inkling that I am functioning around average. Even though I know that what I consider to be average would be above average for most people, this just isnt me.

It was this fuzziness that had pulled me from the sofa this afternoon, that pushed my feet into my running shoes, that placed my house keys into one hand, my iPod into another. I wasnt sure where Id get the energy to run, but I knew Id find it: Id push through that initial wall, just as I had dozens of times before, and the next time I opened the front door of my riverside apartment it would be with adrenalin pumping through my veins, Id feel invigorated. Thats what a run had always done.

I glance down at my feet doing their job, finding the pace the way they always did, the rhythm, the gentle thud as I hit the concrete, and I look up again at the path, waiting for the world to sharpen into focus just as it always had. Five hundred meters, the robotic voice in my headphones announces, my iPod synced up to my shoes, motivation to push me through, and yet right now, it feels more like a marker of failure. Ive done more than this. I tackled the Three Peaks Challenge last year and I can still conjure up the feeling I had when I reached the top of the first peak, Pen-y-ghent, more than 2,000 feet above sea level; it felt like Id conquered the world. The same adrenalin I now desperately awaited had pushed blood around my body to tackle two more peaks on the same day, the wind blowing hard in my ears at the top. Life wasnt fuzzy around the edges then; it was pin-sharp.

Its cold and crisp and my running leggings hug my thighs, keeping the warmth of my body trapped inside. Aside from the sound of my rubber soles hitting the path, the only other sound is the swish of oars breaking the stillness of the river as the scullers practice their skills between bridges. Down one side of the river Ill go, crossing the Millennium Bridge, back up the other side, a route I have trodden so many times before. But then, in a second, everything changes. Without warning, Im falling. Theres no time to even put my hands out toward the concrete as it comes crashing toward me. My face hits the ground first; white pain shoots through my nose, my cheekbones; I feel a crack. Something hot and sticky bursts from within. Its a couple of seconds before there is complete stillness. I use it to catch my breath and when I reach up to my face my hand returns to me covered in blood. Thats when the pain hits, not just physical pain, but the sting of humiliation as I look down at my legs, a tangle in front of me, and for that split second I dont recognize them or what theyve done to me. Or, rather, what theyve allowed to happen. Ive broken my nose, Im sure of it. I stagger to my feet, blood soaking my running top, seeping into each thread of the fabric. Helpless to stop the stain spreading further across my chest, I stumble back toward home.

My doctors office is just around the corner, and so I decide to walk there and see the nurse. The shock is settling into my bones now, and by the time I stand in front of her, my hands are shaking. My knees are doing the same, and Im hoping that she hasnt noticed.

She sends me straight to Emergency and on the walk there, Im still trying to work out what went wrong, whether it was anything to do with that sense of something I couldnt put my finger on when I set off. Was that it? Was that what I was waiting for? A fall while I was running? But somehow it feels bigger than that. I wait in Emergency, the blood drying brown on my running top, tissues speckled scarlet scrunched tight inside my palm, telling myself that this is a one-off, and then finally Im called in to see the nurse who will patch me up.

Well, theres nothing broken, she says. Youre lucky. How did it happen?

Im not sure, I say. I was out running.

Ah, the perils of running, she laughs. I know them well!

We share the joke, rolling our eyes, but its there again, that sense of something more. Im already planning to go back along the route on my way home, to find the wonky paving slab that has left me with two black eyes, yet thankfully, no broken bones. Im grateful that Im on annual vacation, that I dont need to walk into the office tomorrow with black and purple patterns stretched across my face.

An hour later Im standing in front of the place where I fell. Its easily recognizable from the spatter of red where my face hit the pavement. I search all around, but there is no dip in the pavement, no loose slab, nothing to trip over. So what was it, then? The fog in my head makes it hard to deciphertheres nothing, no cluesbut this has never happened before. I return home and lie back into the sofa cushions, battered and bruised, back where I was before, looking out at the River Ouse as the sky darkens above it and the mystery deepens beneath. Im tired now, more tired than before. It hurts to close my eyes, but this time I let the lethargy cover me like a blanket, and for the first time, I dont attempt to fight it.

Its a few days later, and I book an appointment with my General Practitioner, the tiredness dragging me there rather than anything else. My lack of energy: thats how it started.

I sit in front of him. I justI just feel slower than usual, I say, and he studies me for a second or two.

Ive been entertaining silly thoughts. One that passed through quickly was a brain tumor. I study the doctors face to see if hes thinking the same, but he gives away no clues. Instead, his shoulders slump away from his ears and he attempts an expression of something like empathy.