The Cause Of My Amnesia-Inducing Surgery

Hemochromatosis, The Celtic Curse

I have hereditary hemochromatosis, which is a genetic disease in which iron absorption is significantly increased. Iron overload is what caused my gallbladder to rupture. 

When I woke up after emergency organ removal surgery, everything was blurry. I didn’t recognize anything or anybody, including myself. I was diagnosed with retrograde and antegrade amnesia. 

Since that day five years ago, I’ve felt like I’m a time traveler. I landed in a time frame that is 20-30 years behind—whatever time I’m in. I’m infinitely trying to connect who I am to who I used to be.  Memories are more than snapshots of past occurrences. 

Memories include how we continually learn things—things like how boil an egg, how to know the navigation of of homes I’d spent a lot of time in, or if I ate anything that day.

I didn’t forget instinct, like I’m right-handed or that I’m a writer. 

I created this site to share my personal experiences living with amnesia, and to foster understanding and empathy among readers. Thank you for stopping by. I hope my story resonates with you.

Every so often, I send out a newsletter about my physical and mental whereabouts. Make sure to sign up for my newsletter so you don’t miss anything.

P.S. Once, I was a sex phone actor. Now I’m using my voice to launch a podcast. Sign up. You know you want to.

A person wearing large glasses, a red bandana, and a plaid shirt slightly open to reveal a colorful rose tattoo on their chest. They are standing indoors with a floral shower curtain visible in the background.

Amnesia & Medical Visits

Disaster Girl. Ces't moi. If I recall correctly, I earned that nickname right after I shattered my tibfib during roller derby practice. Tahoe Derby Dames! Anyway.

So. On September 27th I was ordered to go the ER because I was anemic. This was a strange order because I've spent a lot of time with phlebotomists because I have hemochromatosis.

So I went. Had a bunch of scans. Gave blood, got blood. Went back home. And then, 6 hours later, the Parkland ER called me and ordered me to come back because of ACUTE PANCREATITIS. Again.

So then I went back to the Parkland ER. Got admitted. Was not allowed to leave the hospital for 8 more days. Etcetera.

As is common with lengthy hospital stays, I was attached to the bed through my hardworking IV pole. And a built-in bed alarm. Then, on my last couple of days, I was released from the alarm. YAY! I was able to, with IV pole in tow, go the bathroom all by myself.

Of course, on my way back from the bathroom, a wave of vertigo washed over me and I fell down. I crashed to the gross hospital floor—and brought the IV pole with me—yes, the heavy-as-rocks pole landed on me. (Yes, that is what she said.) It was a pretty nasty fall, which I know because of the gigantic bruise on my upper thigh.

Anyhoo. Just another day in Feisty Falls Down world.

A person with light skin and a blue floral tattoo rests their crossed arms on a hospital bed rail, perhaps after frequent medical visits. The scene suggests a medical setting, with small bruises or marks visible on the person's skin.

World Haemochromatosis Awareness Week

World Haemochromatosis Awareness Week 1-7th June 2025

Hemochromatosis is a condition where the body absorbs too much iron from food, leading to iron overload. This excess iron can damage organs like the liver, heart, and pancreas, causing serious complications like liver disease, heart problems, and diabetes.

Haemochromatosis, aka the Celtic Curse, (Or, as I call it, the Celtic Cunt.) is what's caused nearly all the medical crap that's happened to this thing I call my body.

Chronic pancreatitis: √
Pancreatic tumor: √
Diabetes: √
And so on and so on and so one: √

Iron to overloaded my gall bladder, causing its rupture. And that's when I woke up with zero idea of who the fuck I was. Where the fuck I was. Or what life I'd been living.

I've typed up a bit about my experience over here. And this site is where I publish stories about living life as an amnesiac.

The main treatment for hemochromatosis is to remove iron from the body with scheduled visits for phlebotomy. Luckily I'm not scared of needles.

To be continued.

A nurse wearing a mask and gloves administers an IV to a patient’s hand in a hospital room. The scene, highlighting Haemochromatosis Awareness Week, includes medical supplies and equipment visible in the background.

Amnesia Or Time Travel

I’m not myself. I’m not Michelle Kathleen O’Kane. I’m just a foggy picture of whatever I once was. 

Now I’m a fading, static instant photograph. Shake it like a Polaroid picture. Words inside my head shake. Letters and punctuation and quotation marks floating around this turbulent area behind the bones of my skull. 

The universe, inside my head, is a flat Polaroid picture. I’m searching for light to force emulsion. But this empty brain inside this skull is dark. To dark to develop the lives of all the versions of myself I've lived. Now I’m collecting layers—negative and positive layers, which help me diffuse into the infinitely developing images. My lives.

Time travel is complex. Memories are never the same place twice. 

This place. This soft gray shawl, my WIP on my bed. On my west elm side table a book waits to be read. Dare To Surrender. By Lilly Feisty. Me.

Me Before and Me After incessantly converse about me. I wake up while driving in various cars, and I’m always the driver. Cars. I often travel in time. I find myself in the driver's seat in incongruous cars: 72 Blue Nova, yellow VW rabbit—I got this car when my mother died. Blue Ford Ranger. New. Miata! Purchased that new, too. 

I received a bit of money when my mom died. So when I turned 18 I could spend my inheritance on whatever the fuck I wanted. I bought house. In Santa Clara. I made a garden. 

Aware. When I’m driving I surround myself with the color-changing hills. I’m humming along with Elvis Costello.  I’m watching the detectives. (The Angels Wanna Wear) my red shoes. 

I’m now pointed west, driving 92 toward Half Moon Bay. I’m various makes of cars, all of which I owned. Today I’m driving a clutch—my blue Ford Ranger. This is the car I purchased with the money I received after my mother died. 

I am now 18, and she’d died just a few months ago, while I was 17. Just before my mother died she’d received several thousand dollars, and then my brother and I inherited that money. So, of course, I spent it. 

I’ve finally come to realized and understand how crazy I am. 

I haven’t watched a movie with another person in over 5 years. I haven’t laughed with someone in as many years. A few times something I’m watching or hearing has caused the sound—the sharp chirp of a laugh. The noise scares me. Hearing my own laugh is such an unfamiliar sound that it shocks me. Then, of course, anxiety crushes those feelings and I have no idea why. Or maybe I do, but forgot. 

I’m jealous of so many things I see on TV. Landscapes and cities and people at tables with white espresso cups. 

Lives.

Patterns Of Time

Here is what is this about. I don't know what I'm about. Funny. People look at me funnily. I'm not sure why. I'm pretty sure I don't want to know why. Even if I knew why, my memories have, and still are. The experiences are now flat. Flat as a photograph.

Time is a thing that speeds by on a billion schedules, pattering its way around the world in an infinitely interactive lacy web. Life billows. My heart-my heart my heart my h-heart hear-t beats to its own fucking drum. I have a past. I have a history. I have a story. Stories. I have things. Like my blue Le Creuset dutch oven, which I purchased at the Crate&Barrel. I worked at the Estée Lauder counter inside Nordstrom. When I worked in The Stanford Shopping Center I purchased a lot of things.

Somewhere. Things. My bed. My paintings. My Dutch oven I purchased at th

I have a heart. Full of Iron. I feel the iron. Non-melodiously, I feel it in my erratically beating heart.

Born and raised in Northern California, I moved to the Sierra Nevada high desert just before I turned thirty.

Most people call me Feisty. Go to Amazon, search Lilli Feisty, and you'll see why. I write. I play with my dogs. I write letters to my kid. I knit. I write. I read. I 

I used to write romance novels. Now I write my memories. I love pretty stories, even when they're not pretty.

The Brain — is wider than the Sky

My 6th Grade Brain Assignment

Every day, exponentially expanding, are my thoughts. I then forget them. I have a room and all I see are things I've collected over the past two years. Yarn and knitting needles and more colored pencils and more yarn and. . . and the rest is mine, my things. My things fit into a box. My small purse and my three backpacks. My two photos of myself and my son. My flute. My ancient tv, on which I watch Friends and Sex and the City. My old bathrobe. 

My photos are in my old house, where my son still lives. We were sitting on the sofa, the sofa I chose with my husband. As far as I know, my ex husband, my son, and the new wife still sit on my furniture. 

My things represent my life because they are my life. My life is in this room. My blackout curtains block out the back of a giant satellite dish. It overlooks the pool five stories below. And across the way there is another giant building with the exact same apartments housed within. Each has a minuscule balcony that nobody uses unless someone is smoking. Sometimes I smell cigarette smoke from the twenty-somethings who live next door. On Saturday nights they play rap. I have never met them.

What's familiar to me are my knitting needles and my yarn. I know people I see on my decrepit television. I know when the tv finally dies I won't have that. I try to focus on what I do have. Still, less and less do I have any wish to bother.  But, I'm still a writer. I still have that.

I want to finish the hat I'm knitting for my son. I want to finish something. I wanted to finish my life, but I haven't and I won't. When I die I hope there's something good to do. Something to finish. 

I have memories, and I want to talk about them and, more than anything, I want to see them. I want to go on a drive through Hope Valley. I want to buy a sandwich at the Genoa Store. Then, I want to drive to the Playa and get in a truck. I want to drive into the desert and find hot springs. I want to smile and drive that weird road that seemed to go nowhere. It had nothing particularly memorable about it, except that it was old. There was a town with a Smith's, a gas station, and an old church. I want to see those things. I want to see a sunset from my own porch. I want to make toast in my own kitchen with my own dishes. I want to drink water from a glass I remember finding at a thrift store. Instead, I'm just sitting in this room. The dark curtains hide an outside that means nothing. I'm looking at Facebook and seeing familiar faces. I'm confused because I have no reason to make new memories. I have no way to do so. I have no relevance and nothing I see is relevant to me. I'm a million miles away from anything familiar and I'm driftless in my sky.

The Brain — is wider than the Sky
Emily Dickinson, c. 1862

The Brain — is wider than the Sky —
For — put them side by side —
The one the other will contain
With ease — and You — beside —

The Brain is deeper than the sea —
For — hold them — Blue to Blue —
The one the other will absorb —
As Sponges — Buckets — do —

The Brain is just the weight of God —
For — Heft them — Pound for Pound —
And they will differ — if they do —
As Syllable from Sound —

A person with short, pink-tinted hair and glasses is wearing headphones and a hospital gown while sitting in a hospital bed. Medical equipment is visible in the background.