British teenager Chloe Inman, 16, suffered from amnesia and for two years couldn’t remember a single thing about her life, until one day her little brother cured her with a cuddle!
For six years she’d suffered excruciating headaches from a rare illness, idiopathic intracranial hypertension, which went undiagnosed.
At 15, Chloe was finally diagnosed with the condition, which puts intense pressure inside the skull, causing headaches.
She had fluid drained from her spine to help relieve the pain but when she woke up, she had no memories of her life.
She didn’t recognise her parents, Julie, 41, and Daryl, 42, her sister Ellie, 9, or her brother Caleb, now 7 – they’d all vanished from her memory.
The emotional pain she went through afterwards was horrifying.
“I had forgotten my entire life, which was absolutely devastating. I literally lost everything,” Chloe says.
“I didn’t recognise my mum but I thought she must be important because she didn’t leave my side through the whole ordeal.
“I thought she must be my mum but I didn’t remember anything about her or anything that we had done together.
“It was a weird feeling in my stomach – I felt like I knew my family from somewhere but I couldn’t think where.
“It’s a known side-effect of the treatment. I’ve since heard that some people forget how to do their jobs,” she adds.
In hope that her memory would return in familiar surroundings, doctors sent Chloe home, but tough times were still ahead.
She had to take two months off school because she didn’t understand what was going on, explaining, “I just kept thinking, ‘I don’t remember you.’”
There was a glimmer of hope when she instantly clicked with her best friend, but it was her little brother Caleb who held the cure in his arms.
One day, her then-6-year-old brother walked into her room and gave his elder sister a cuddle. And that was the moment Chloe’s memory miraculously returned!
“It sounds weird and is hard to explain but the first thing I remember was my little brother Caleb. Our bond is a really powerful thing and he just came into my room and gave me a big hug,” Chloe explains.
“We’ve always had a close bond and a special relationship and somehow that moment triggered everything coming back to me.
“After that hug all my family memories came back – every last one of them!”
Chloe’s inspirational story doesn’t stop there – she’s been headache-free for the past year and is finally able to focus on the future.
She’s decided to dedicate her life to helping others as an army medic and with a mission to raise awareness of the condition that made her lose so much.
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