要多坚强才敢念念不忘：一篇关于失忆和记忆的奇特故事

what's going on?

andrew engel was completely confused. just days into his freshman year at rutgers university, he was sitting in sociology 101, listening to other students chime into a discussion. he had no idea what they were talking about. he had done his homework, paid attention to lectures and taken notes, but nothing was familiar. everyone is so much smarter than i am, he thought. it was a foreign feeling, as he'd always been a good student and had graduated high school with a 3.9 gpa.

the rest of his day progressed like an episode of the twilight zone. he got lost, again, on his way to the cafeteria, even though he'd been there a few hours earlier. back at his dorm, he greeted his roommate with a "hi, how's it going?" all the while thinking, what the heck is his name again?

he was acting like a person with alzheimer's disease -- but he was only 17. by the end of september, he'd dropped a class and was studying with a tutor, yet he was still struggling. he decided he had no choice but to drop out, telling his bewildered parents he wasn't cut out for college.

andrew had long wanted to get a degree and work in health care, and was crushed that his dream had been derailed. he was also distraught about being separated for the first time from his identical twin brother, jason, also a student at rutgers. he cried for most of the long ride to his parents' house in maryland.

they thought it was anxiety and took andrew to see a psychiatrist. the doctor couldn't pinpoint a cause and blamed stress. but andrew continued to act strangely and had trouble finding the right words when speaking. he asked, "what's for dinner?" after he'd just eaten. he got disoriented driving the streets he knew so well and, while running errands, forgot why he was out. "it was weird. i'd never had health problems before," andrew says. "i felt it had to be psychological. that i was overwhelmed and it was clouding my mind."

devastating diagnosis
memories are imprinted on the brain like data on a hard drive. all the information andrew had downloaded before the tumor (autobiographical details, motor skills and what he learned in school) was intact. but the tumor had damaged the software used to save new information, which is why the amnesia became glaringly obvious only when he was at college, in an unfamiliar environment.

doctors removed part of the tumor and zapped the rest with radiation, leaving andrew so sick that he dropped 30 pounds. the cancer was gone, but his relief was short-lived, as he was told he'd probably never return to school. he had an above-average verbal iq of 120, but his memory recall score was 68, comparable with that of a person who is developmentally challenged. his only career option would likely be a highly supervised manual-labor job.

"even as they told me this, i knew i wanted to try to go back to school," andrew says. "i didn't know if i could do it, but i was really motivated. i wanted to give it all i could to get my memory back."

his parents feared he was setting himself up for failure and asked him to check with his doctors, neuropsychologist dustin gordon, then a post-doctoral fellow, and his supervisor, schretlen. andrew was looking for a way to retrain his brain and improve his memory. the doctors had rarely seen someone so determined, so they agreed to devise strategies to help andrew absorb information in class and while studying, as well as techniques for organizing his thoughts so he could write papers. he would have to work ten times harder than other students and, if he became overwhelmed, possibly have to quit school.

andrew began by auditing an english class at nearby howard community college. eventually he discovered that reading things at least five times increased his chance of retaining information. in class, he wrote detailed notes, and a note taker supplemented what he missed. he reread his notes several times a day, then retyped them and the textbook material. he crammed 12 hours a day, seven days a week, breaking only for class, meals or a workout. to remember lists and data, he used acronyms and mnemonics.