We’ve all seen 50 First Dates, but Nikki Pegram – who wakes up every morning thinking it’s October 15, 2014 – will tell you that the reality is far more excruciating than the light spin Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore made it out to be.
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The best way to tell this story is to go about it the same way Nikki's husband, Chris, tells it: from the beginning. After all, Chris has had practice telling this story; he's had to tell it to his wife every day for over nine months now.
Last year, on October 15, Nikki Pegram was walking out of Kettering General Hospital in the U.K. after being treated for a knee problem when suddenly she tripped over and smashed her head into a metal pole near the front entrance.
She blacked out, and when she awoke, doctors realized the injury had cursed Nikki with a very rare type of anterograde amnesia in which the victim forgets everything that happens from the incident onwards.
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Every single morning since that fateful day last year, Nikki wakes up thinking it's October 15, 2014.
Her husband Chris goes through the entire process of bringing her up to date on what happened, and when she goes to sleep that night, her mind completely resets again and the same thing happens the next morning.
Nikki has resorted to keeping a "memory book" with her at all times so that she can read her own account of what she's been up to everyday over the last nine months. Imagine reading your own handwriting, knowing it's you that wrote it, but having no recollection of anything you wrote about.
"Everyday when I wake up, I have no idea that actually nine months have passed and it's 2015," Nikki explains.
"I'm the real life Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates, but amnesia is not as fun and comical as the film makes it look. I've missed Christmas, family holidays and even my own birthday because I can't remember anything after the accident."
When asked what she struggles with most when she relearns this horrific revelation each morning, she says it's "learning that I no longer have a job, that it's now 2015 and that I've missed my birthday."
There's no telling what the future holds for Nikki and Chris but for the moment, the couple have to make do with their arrangement of Chris spending several hours each morning explaining the situation, comforting her, and getting through each day as best they can.
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