["Alina's Place" by Fredrik]
- Gwen: I always have a note card in my pocket
that tells me what the date is.
And I have to write down when I eat meals
because sometimes I might eat lunch three times
because I don't remember that I ate already.
The doctors say the brain can continue healing
up to two years, but whatever is not back by that point
is not likely to ever come back.
So you had your surgery
in November 2008, right? - Right.
And so I'm gonna have to live the rest of my life this way.
And the thing that scares me the most is like,
the thought that I will wake up one day and I'll be 80 years old
and I won't remember the last 40 years of my life.
- Yasir: Do you remember when you first came out of surgery?
- Gwen: I know that I used to always think
that I was in San Francisco. [laughs]
- Yasir: What are those things called?
Do you remember? - Gwen: Confabulations.
- Yasir: Yeah. - Gwen: Yeah.
Do you remember another confabulation
that I used to have?
- Yasir: You used to think that your coworker Barbara
was your mom. - Gwen: That's right. [laughs]
- Yasir: Even though she's a completely different race
than you. [Gwen laughs]
- Gwen: That's funny, yeah.
- There was one point where you were confused
'cause you thought we had broken up.
And I would ask you, like, "Why do you think
you're staying at my place?"
She's like, "Well, we're just cool like that."
[Gwen laughs] - Yeah, sorry about that.
- That's all right.
- And after all you've been doing for me.
- Thankfully, you got over that. - I'm thankful for that as well.
- So is there any positive things
that have come out of losing your memory?
That you can look back on?
- Gwen: Well, I ran the New York City Marathon
with you, my boyfriend.
And one of the things that I asked you
was to help me, as a trick, to not let me look
at any of the mile markers along the way.
And if I asked you how long we'd been running,
to always tell me 10 or 15 minutes. [laughs]
And it really worked like a charm.
- Yasir: Yeah. - Gwen: And when we got
to the end, you and I were running
across the finish line, and as if on cue,
I started crying my eyes out 'cause I was so happy.
You know, I have spent a lot of days since my injury
comparing myself to what I used to be
and feeling sad about the things that I've lost.
But doing the marathon shows me that
I still have a lot left in me.
["Black Fur" by Fredrik]