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When 14-year-old Weronika Somerville woke up from brain surgery to remove a tumour, she didn’t recognise the people in her hospital room. They were her parents.
On the way to a post-op scan, a medic started to talk to her. He realised she had no idea who he was – despite the fact he was the surgeon who had carried out her procedure.
Weronika had suffered a rare complication – unusual retrograde amnesia. She couldn’t recall events or people from her past life.
Her memories never returned.
“I only know from what my parents have told me,” Weronika told BBC Scotland News.
“I remember so many faces I hadn’t seen before.
“On the way home it was petrifying – getting in a car was scary. I was just going along with what I was told to do.
“It felt like I was going home with strangers who said they were my mum and dad – my mum was showing me my room they had done up for me for after my surgery – but none of it looked like it belonged to me.
“I remember looking at my clothes and thinking who would wear this?”
Weronika, from Prestonpans near Edinburgh, said she knew it was ok to be there, but said her whole personality, and her family relationships, changed.
She said: “They never lost that connection with me, but even now, I don’t think my relationship is as close as they would want it – I am more isolated and have been my own person since the surgery.
“My parents kept showing me photo albums – and that really annoyed me – they were talking and laughing about things I did when I was younger but no matter how hard I tried to focus on it, I got nothing.
“I didn’t like looking at photos with them because they have emotional attachment to these moments and I don’t.”
Weronika was terrified she would wake up and not know who her fiancé Cameron was.
“The fear was that the last time it happened it changed who I was – what if I don’t actually like him?”
But Cameron took it in his stride, making photographic memory books and scrapbooks of their relationship and writing notes and letters to his fiancée.
“He said: “She means everything to me – absolutely everything. If she was to lose her memory I would just have to make her fall in love with me all over again and take it from there.”
Practically, Weronika wrote down all her banking details and passwords, organised a will, and wrote a letter to her partner for the worst-case scenario.
Coming round from her operation, the room held its breath.
“I woke up and everyone was there – this time around I didn’t feel like I had a surgery, I felt like I had a nap,” Weronika said.
“My family were in pieces the whole time.
“But I was completely aware and I knew exactly what happened. I was able to talk.
“I saw Imran and I remember saying ‘I still remember you’.”
Weronika is recovering well and married Cameron in December.
She is looking forward to a happy life after 100% of the tumour was removed and she is indebted to the two men who made it happen.
“I don’t think I could express my gratitude to those two surgeons enough,” she said.
“This is the second time they have saved my life.
“When you watch it you realise what goes into it and they are like gods – they are amazing.”
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