My mind went blank! Meet the ‘miracle girl’ who suffered total memory loss

Brenda Koros walks with a quiet confidence. A sureness that belies the catastrophic event that changed her life eight years ago. An event that had her relearning everything she knew. From learning to walk, use the toilet, cook, retain memories and even recalling names. The civil engineering degree student calmly walks up to me and shakes my hand. She takes a seat and smiles at me.

Brenda is now a fifth year civil engineering student at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT). She will complete her studies in a few months. She aces her exams, a fact that puzzles her doctors at Kenyatta National Hospital

"Some people do not recover well even after a concussion, yet Brenda is now finishing her degree in civil engineering. She really is a miracle girl," says Dr Josephine Omondi, Brenda's physician.
Brenda smiles and insists that she has had to work harder than most.

"I am always studying, so I do not really have the typical life of a college student. I have to keep reading things over and over to retain information, because if I don't, I have to start again from scratch," she says. She has nonetheless been performing well in school and has also done some work – study programs.

While she still cannot remember small details about her past, she remembers significant events.
The fateful road accident that changed her life happened on September 8, 2008 when Brenda was headed back to school. It was the beginning of her third school term at Chogoria Girls High School. The head on collision was between an oncoming matatu and the car Brenda and her father David Koros were in.

David Koros and many passengers in the matatu died. When Brenda was pulled out of road accident wreckage eight years ago, alive and no broken bones, many heaved a sigh of relief. What they didn't know was that the teenager had suffered a mental injury. One that would cost Brenda a great deal.

"She had total memory loss due to the concussion she suffered during the accident. She had a brain oedema," says Dr Omondi. "She could not remember anything. Her memory had been wiped clean. She couldn't recognise her mother or younger brother. And had absolutely no recollection of the accident that had also claimed her father's life."

Brenda solemnly turns to me and says, "I didn't know who my mum and brother were. As concerned as they looked, I didn't care. I just felt horrible. Like I was in a dream that I needed to wake up from."
Dr Omondi, sensing Rachael, Brenda's mother's turmoil, suggested that she show Brenda pictures of the crash to re-jig her memory.

"When she saw the pictures, she didn't react at all. It didn't register that her dad had passed away. Or that she had been in an accident at all," Rachel says.
Brenda had also become so violent that she had to be restrained.

"The nerves in the brain are inter-connected and Brenda's were disoriented by the trauma. Also some neuro transmitters were affected. This causes some imbalance that could have caused Brenda's violent nature," explains Dr Omondi.

Her mental imbalance also triggered suicidal thoughts.
"I felt like I was in a dream and so I tried to do all I could to make the dream end. At one point, I tried jumping off the window ledge at the hospital and sometime later at home, asked the security guard if he had a gun. Intended to shoot myself."

Besides losing her long-term and short-term memory, her working memory was gone too. Dr Omondi describes working memory as the daily memory that one needs to accomplish day to day tasks. "It is the ability to temporarily retain information in your mind, long enough to use it later. For Brenda, this ability was lost," Rachel explains.

"I often wondered if she would need to be spoon-fed for the rest of her life. Or if she would ever be able to live on her own. She needed full time care and was in diapers, always under watch because of her suicidal and violent tendencies. All knives, drugs and anything that she could use to harm herself was hidden from her," says Rachel.

At no point during Brenda's recovery did it cross Rachel's mind that she would ever go back to school.
In December 2008, Brenda was discharged to recuperate at home.
At the beginning of 2009, the Chogoria Girls' School principal, members of the PTA and the board of governors visited and insisted that Brenda go back to school and do what she could. By then, she could recognise her mother and brother.

"Going back to school was horrible. I could not remember my teachers or my classmates," says Brenda. "I could not even remember my dormitory or the class I was in," she explains.
"I would borrow something and then completely forget that I had borrowed it or where I had placed it and the owner would get so angry about it," says Brenda.

She even had to have special utensils, different from the rest so that if any of them was spotted after she had misplaced them, they would be returned to her.
"This is why I did not change schools because if I had, they wouldn't so understanding," she says.

By mid-2009, Brenda had acknowledged her father's death and was coming to terms with it. She was however still a long way off from full recovery.
As a former top performer, her now poor grades were crushing "I was getting E grades in all subjects because I could not remember things. I was also bothered every time a teacher during assembly would say things like 'For someone like Brenda, we can understand if she does not perform well, but the rest of you have no excuse,'. I felt like they regarded me a loser."

Her resolve to fight and recover hardened when she scored an E grade in her mock exams. "I decided to repeat that class in 2010. I would fight to remember things and reward myself if I did. The school required all students to be in class by 4am and I would push myself to study until 12.30am, hoping to get at least a grade of C-. I then watched a program talking about how diet could affect memory, and decided to exclude sugar from my diet. I added lots of fruits, vegetables and water."

She also decided to work on her inner self.
"My other source of healing was positive thinking. I had inner strength that kept me going. I dipped a piece of chalk in water and wrote 'captain pilot' on my desk, so that I could look at it and get motivated by my desire to be a pilot whenever I felt bleak. People soon started calling me 'captain pilot'," she says with a laugh.

When the KCSE results were announced, the following year, she had scored a B+ grade. A feat she never thought she would accomplish given the circumstances.
"Doctors at KNH were shocked. They call it a medical miracle because they did not expect me to recover so quickly based on the kind of brain injury I had. My brain suffered trauma and was filled with blood because of the impact."

Former Cabinet Secretary Felix Kosgey, on hearing her story, offered her a job at Kenya National Highways Authority (KENHA) before she joined university. "Working as an assistant to the civil engineers, I quickly realised that I liked the profession." She also discovered that aviation would be too expensive for the family and settled on civil engineering.

Brenda Koros is now a happy girl. She is glad that she got a second chance at life. A chance that she intends to fully utilise. She smiles confidently, signalling the end of the interview. Truly, a woman's strength is fully displayed when all chips are down.