For the past three months, Riley Horner, a teenage girl from
Illinois, has been waking up every morning thinking it’s June 11. To
make matters worse, her memory resets every couple of hours, so she
can’t even remember things she did or people she met that very day.
Riley’s troubles began after she got accidentally kicked in the head
by a teenager who was crowd-surfing during a dance at the FFA State
Convention. She was taken to the hospital, but doctors there only
diagnosed her with a concussion and sent her home with crutches. Tests
showed no brain bleed, tumor, or anything else out of the ordinary, but
Riley’s family soon noticed that there was something wrong with her. It
was like her brain was suck in the past and refused to make any new
memories. But apart from her memory constantly resetting, Riley has also
experienced dozens of seizures in the last three months.
I’m not making memories and I’m just like really scared,” Riley told WQAD. “People just don’t understand. It’s like a movie. Like I will have no recollection of this interview come suppertime.”
“I have a calendar on my door and I look and it’s September and I’m
like ‘Whoa,'” the teen added. “I’m very confused and I try to think back
and I can’t.”
Riley’s symptoms have baffled doctors, as they can’t even figure out
what’s wrong with her, let alone try to fix it. The teen’s mother said
that at first doctors told them that her memory might get better as time
passed, but it’s been three months and her condition has not improved.
Now they’re saying that she could stay like this forever, which is
something Riley’s mother cannot accept.
"I have a calendar on my door. I look and it's September and I'm like, 'Woah'," Riley Horner said. https://t.co/PuYpb61p8V— Action News on 6abc (@6abc) September 11, 2019
The young girl has been struggling to deal with her condition, but
even the simplest of things are really difficult under the
circumstances. She always carries detailed notes with her at school, so
when her memory rests every couple of hours, she can go over the things
she needs to know, like how to find her locker. Almost everything Riley
has experienced since June has been wiped clean from her memory, and she
can’t even remember tragic events like the death of her uncle.
“My brother passed away last week, and she probably has no idea,”
Riley’s mother, Sarah, said. “We tell her every day, but she has no idea
about it.”
“We need somebody that knows a little bit more because she deserves
better. I mean she wanted to be in the medical field and now she can’t
even hold a job if she wanted to,” the desperate woman added.
We’ve featured cases of people whose memory reset every night, like in the hit movie 50 First Dates, but having your short-term memory wiped clean every couple of hours is even more extreme.
