HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Family Money

Snap Shot

Modern Medicine

Heart to Heart with Hillary

Bits ‘n’ Bobs

Personal Directions

Social Commentary by Khai Khem

Women’s World

Family Money: Interlinked Hedge Funds

By Leslie Wright,
Managing director of Westminster Portfolio Services (Thailand) Ltd.

Last week we compared single-manager hedge funds and multi-manager hedge funds. Should you invest in them? Some experts are predicting major problems in the hedge funds sector very soon.

Rubbish, you say. Hedge funds thrive on stock market uncertainty, because it gives them more scope for profitable arbitrage trades, which is what hedge funds do best - although it’s not the only thing they do.

Essentially, arbitrage consists of utilising huge amounts of money to make tiny profits when an item (be it a stock or currency or commodity) is listed at slightly different prices in different markets, by buying at the lower price and selling on again at the higher price.

Alternatively, they buy options at one price while short-selling the underlying securities. What could be safer and more respectable than that?

But hedge funds are only safe as long as their managers stick to their own rules and don’t misjudge the risks. They’re supposed to balance every trade with an equal and almost opposite play that ensures that, if anything goes wrong with their main move, the countermoves will kick in and save their funds. (That’s why they’re called hedge funds.)

But if a manager ever decides to go out on a limb in pursuit of an unsecured position, then you probably won’t hear about it until something goes wrong.

For instance, when the US hedge fund Long Term Capital Management crashed in the autumn of 1998 after betting wrong on Russia, the first we knew about it was when the papers gleefully reported that LTCM had surreptitiously geared its exposure by up to 30 times without properly counterbalancing its bets. This one hedge fund was calculated to have amassed a potential liability of over $200 billion - which was not only equivalent to $700 for every US citizen, but also the equivalent of six months’ US trade deficit. In the end, it cost the US Federal Reserve some $2.5 billion to forestall what otherwise would have developed into a nationwide banking crisis.

If that was what one rogue hedge fund could achieve, how much damage could a hundred wrong-guessing LTCMs do?

It is worth noting that there are now about 6,000 hedge funds trading internationally, compared with just 900 in 1995, and handling an estimated $6 trillion - or $1,000 for every person on the planet. Most of these funds are aimed at “sophisticated” high-net-worth investors, typically requiring a minimum investment in excess of $100,000 - and in some case much more.

Why are you unlikely to hear about the bad news before it breaks over your head? Well, a major reason why a hedge fund manager will so often beat the market is that he demands complete discretion over what he does with your money from day to day. One day he might invest in German blue chips, the next day in coffee futures, and the day after in Japanese small cap equities. This gadfly approach, combined with the inherent secrecy that prevails in any offshore financial centre, is enough to ensure that transparency hardly exists among hedge funds.

But before we get paranoid, certain safeguards do exist whereby those hedge funds that operate within main-market national centres (London, Dublin, Luxembourg, New York) have agreed to become more transparent, thereby enhancing their image and attractiveness, and are subject to the local investment authorities’ regulations, which have become much stricter in recent years.

The Disaster Scenario

So what would it take to precipitate a major hedge find crisis? Actually, not much at all.

First, we need to understand that a large proportion of the world’s hedge fund holdings are currently being bought by other hedge funds, which collectively repackage and unitise them into funds-of-funds that they can sell on to pension funds. These funds-of-funds are intended to spread their investors’ risks more widely than could be achieved by following just one hedge fund manager at a time - but alas, they also have the unfortunate side-effect of turning the hedge fund managers themselves into the arbiters of each other’s performance and reliability. This is not a healthy development.

Second, we need to acknowledge that a lot of hedge fund managers are worried about their performance bonuses. A typical hedge fund manager earns his income by taking a substantial cut from the money he makes for his investors - as much as 25% of the overall winnings in an average year. And the main reason you never hear about this is because it’s deducted as a running cost from the fund’s results. That arrangement’s fine while the manager’s making money, but when things start looking dicey for future profits, some unscrupulous managers may be tempted to implement what might be called ‘Plan B’.

‘Plan B’ entails shorting one of their fellows’ hedge funds, deliberately driving it down, to make a profit from its temporary discomfort. This time though they wouldn’t be playing with just their investors’ money; instead, they’d be trading in their own right with their own money. Once the profits had been made, the victimised fund’s price could be allowed to rise again by transferring the negative rumours to the next fund down the line.

‘Plan B’ would be illegal as well as immoral. Most hedge fund managers are paid exorbitant fees by their employers on the clear understanding that they don’t invest on their own accounts - or at least are required to keep such dealings absolutely clear and open to scrutiny. But the part about managers ganging up on each other to drive down prices has been industry gossip for many months.

How bad would things have to get before the lure of easy money over-rode somebody’s scruples and induced them to run things on their own account instead of their company’s? Not much worse, probably. And how well would the financial world take it if half a trillion dollars’ worth of hedge fund holdings went AWOL without warning? Would there be a measured and centralised response, as with LTCM, or would we see panic-stricken investors dumping their hedge fund holdings in sheer terror at the extent to which these secretive funds are interlinked? The mere thought sends a shiver down the spine.

Snap Shot: Second Hand Rose!

by Harry Flashman

A friend has just been in the position of wanting to purchase a camera and wondered whether he should get a new one, or take the risk and get a second hand one. He asked me for my advice, and as always, I say to go for second hand. My Scottish heritage comes to the fore when buying anything, so if you can save 50% of the price of a new one, and get the same performance, it’s a no-brainer as far as I am concerned. However, there are a few items to consider before plunging into your wallet and forking out for a camera.

In my career as a professional photographer, I have bought many expensive cameras, Hasselblads, Nikons, Canons and Cambo’s. The ‘Blads alone were worth several thousands of dollars, but all of them were second hand! A few years back I had to buy some cameras here (after a robbery - are yours insured?) and they too were second hand.

Like buying anything, the first problem is not ascertaining the condition, it is just making sure that you do not need asbestos gloves to handle the merchandise. In other words, make sure it isn’t “hot”. (In particular, one of my stolen cameras!)

If you are buying from a recognised camera shop then you are probably OK, but from Shady Sam’s it is caveat emptor - let the buyer beware. If you are buying from a private owner, then look for some proof of ownership - a receipt from their initial purchase, or at worst, some insurance documentation. Most robbers don’t bother insuring the loot!

Now let’s go through what you have to do to make sure you have bought a good one - and we’ll deal with the camera body first. Just like looking at a second hand car, how many bumps and scrapes are there on the case? Turn it over and look at the top, front, back, sides and bottom. Look particularly for small dents in the case. With good cameras you have to use a lot of force to actually dent the casing, so it probably means the camera has been dropped. You do not want a dropped camera - they are more trouble than they are worth, no matter how cheaply it is being offered.

Note “wear” marks on the edges. Nice smooth wear areas generally mean the camera spent most of its life in a camera case. In other words, it has had half a chance of being looked after properly.

Now open up the camera back and look inside. Wear marks on the pressure plate on the cover means that it has had lots of film put through it. This is not such a bad thing, but remember that everything will wear out eventually. Look particularly at the shutter. Titanium shutters as used in Nikons are very fragile (and expensive) and should be completely flat. Look for corrosion around the light seal edges of the camera back and the grooves it fits into on the body. This may be a sign of water damage. Look into the body at the front and make sure the mirror is clean and works properly when the shutter is depressed.

Next look at the lens, dismounted from the camera. Check the bayonet or screw fitting and hold the lens up to the light. Look for “spider web” traces on the glass elements which may mean fungus. This does not mean the lens is ruined - it just means it will need a service soon. Now look through the lens while closing the aperture down and make sure it closes OK.

You have only one more check to do. Run a roll of film through and check all the shutter speeds, apertures and functions. With a private seller or photo-shop run a check film through before money actually changes hands. With a camera shop, you should also get a guarantee. Buy carefully and laugh all the way to the bank.

Modern Medicine: I’m always well - or “Sabai Dee Took Wan”

by Dr Iain Corness, Consultant

It’s a little joke around town that when I get asked the standard question, “How are you?” I reply, “I’m always well,” to the English speakers, or “Sabai dee took wan,’ to the locals. Now have I discovered not only the elixir of youth but also the secret to permanent health? Unfortunately it is No! on both counts, but those words can have more effect on your life than you would imagine. It’s all to do with PNI.

So what is PNI? To give it its full title, the letters stand for Psycho-Neuro-Immunology, which explains very quickly why we just say “PNI”, doesn’t it! In this rather inexact “newer” science, what the boffins have been able to do is to measure the body’s physical response to emotional stresses. This is not a simple, “I’m under stress so my (blood) pressure’s up,” but is a valid scientific attempt to quantify the psychological insults to the body in physically measurable terms.

We already knew that those people who “dropped their bundle” under stress appeared to do less well than those who kept up a cheery disposition, but it was all fairly anecdotal stuff. However, there were some studies that showed that those people with a positive approach were more likely to “get over” a cancer than those people with a negative attitude. The positive people had significantly better 5 year survival rates for any cancer than the negative folk. But we didn’t really know why.

As Immunology became a real science, with the ability to measure immune responses by examination of the blood, we began to get a better idea of just what was going on. And guess what? It appeared that people under “stress” depressed their immune system! Was this the answer? Stress reduces your ability to fight things off. Elegantly simple, but unfortunately, too simplistic!

Further studies were done by researchers all over the world and the same results were not duplicated. Sure, sometimes stress appeared to reduce personal immune response, but other people did not show the same effects when under the same type of stress. Just who was fooling whom?

At this stage, someone remembered the old studies on 5 year survival rates and the differences between positive and negative approaches to life, and the immune response measurements were repeated. Now guess what? The positive people had better “immune counts” than negative thinkers. So it seemed as if the positive thinkers had immuno-enhancement while those with negative outlooks and poor coping skills ended up with immuno-suppression. This was, believe me, a real breakthrough.

The medical scientific community began to look at disease processes in a new light. The British Medical Journal now reported a very strong relationship between breast cancer and women who were handling stressors poorly. In fact, another study showed that women who were severely depressed were almost four times more likely to die from all causes over a 5 year follow-up than those who were not. Another study following the progression of HIV showed that those with immuno-suppression (from poor coping skills) doubled the rate of progression of the disease, compared to those with immuno-enhancement.

For my money, this is enough. There is some scientific basis for my “Sabai dee took wan” and it is that positive thought that I present to you today. Now, “How are you?”

Heart to Heart with Hillary

Dear Hillary,

Can you help our 22-year-old son? He is planning on coming over to Thailand at the end of the year to visit his father and me and I am worried that it will not be good for him to be at a loose end too long. He is a quiet boy and keeps to himself a lot, and that is why I was so pleased when he said he would come over after Thanksgiving. My worry comes from the fact that a friend of his stayed over with us a couple of months ago, and while he used to be a reserved Baptist boy too, when he came here he changed. Some nights he did not even come home and other days we could smell alcohol in his room the next morning. He would not tell my husband or myself where he had been, but I have my suspicions, as I am sure you would too, Hillary. Our son will have spoken to this other boy. What should I do about all this?

Concerned Mom

Dear Concerned Mom,

The first thing you have to change is not your baby boy’s nappy, but your attitude. How old is this lad? Since he is old enough to travel on his own, he is old enough to go out at night on his own. It is time to untie the apron strings and let him run free, or you will never be a grandmother. On second thoughts, you are making such a performance out of this one that I shudder to think what you would do with a grandson! Keep the boy at home to watch TV with you. You could also teach him knitting while he is here. It is a very good way of keeping idle hands busy, as you know what mischief idle hands can get up to!

Dear Hillary,

Last year my firm in New York challenged another firm who were all from Thailand to a boat race. The Thai team beat us by a mile. We where very discouraged by the loss. Morale sagged. So management decided that there was a reason for this defeat and hired a consultant firm to investigate the problem and recommend corrective action. The consultant found that the Thai team had eight people rowing and one person steering. We had one person rowing and eight people steering. The analysis cost a lot of money and the conclusion was that too many people steering and not enough where rowing. This year we completely changed our management structure. The “new” structure: four steering managers, three area steering managers and a new performance review system for the person rowing the boat to provide work incentive. This year we lost to Thailand by 2 miles. So, we have laid-off the rower for poor performance and have given all the managers a bonus for discovering the problem.

Ron Fleitman, New York City

Dear Ron,

Are you asking me what to do about this? If it weren’t so true it could be funny (even though I’ve read it before), Ron. Perhaps you should paddle your own canoe?

Dear Hillary,

My new boyfriend has a moustache and every time he kisses me it leaves a rash on my face. I like the look of the mo, but I don’t like the look of the mo rash on me. This is the first time I’ve had this problem. Any suggestions, Hillary?

Noi

Dear Noi,

No problems at all, my Petal. There’s always a first time for everything, but is this the first time a moustache has given you a problem, or the first time you’ve had a boyfriend with grass on the upper lip? Never mind, this is a simple problem for Hillary. All you have to do is to wear a ski mask or balaclava to bed. The other option is to shake hands.

Dear Hillary,

Do you find this continental social habit of kissing everyone three times on the cheeks a turn-off? I think that social kissing is really disgusting. People are just making an excuse to slobber all over you. It is not needed and is unhygienic! How can I avoid it?

Kissin’ cuzzin

Dear Kissin’ cuzzin,

I think you should immediately ring Noi and see if the two of you can get a good deal on a bulk order of balaclavas. Are you kidding me? All you have to do with this social custom is to grab the other person first and make kissy-kissy noises beside their ear, while muttering, “Don’t get too close to me, I’ve got a social disease.” They will leave you alone after that.

Dear Hillary,

I bought some cheap Polo shirts size XL (I am a Farang) at the sidewalk market. When I tried them on at home, three fitted and one was too small. The labels all said XL, can I take the small one back and complain?

Ralph Lauren.

Dear Ralph,

“Copy” shirts have “copy” labels. That’s the price you pay for getting a cheap shirt with a man on a horse on the pocket. Give the small one away at Xmas, and stop moaning. They’re still cheaper than you would pay in your own country.

Bits ‘n’ Bobs

Personal Directions: Living to learn … learning to live!

by Christina Dodd, founder and managing director 
of Incorp Training Asssociates

Recently I was with some friends having a meal and various subjects of discussion came up including what’s on everyone’s mind today – the current state of the world! Whilst we all sat around giving our different views and airing our personal concerns, someone piped up and said, “After all we’ve been through, it seems like we haven’t learnt a thing!” It prompted me to think more about the emphasis we place in our society on learning, and that whilst we recognize the need to learn, by our own actions we seem to totally disregard its importance.

Learning is an integral part of our existence, and so too is learning from our mistakes.

“If the past cannot teach the present and the father cannot teach the son, then history need not have bothered to go on, and the world has wasted a great deal of time.” – Russell Hoban

In many societies there are people who still think that learning happens only at school or college or university. A certain amount of learning takes place there most certainly, but it doesn’t begin there nor does it stop there. And one of the most common mistakes we make as adults is that we think we have learnt it all! After all, we are adults. We have our education and our degree. We don’t need to learn anymore. We have a job and earn a salary. We don’t acknowledge the fact or perhaps we forget the fact that learning is a continuous process that goes on every minute of every day - for the rest of our lives.

For those who do recognize this fact - life holds no boundaries! Life is a celebration!

I remember about five years ago meeting a marvellous man who at the age of sixty three had just completed his doctorate in philosophy and was just about to take on other studies. He found the computer and the internet at a late stage in life and was completely blown away by it. He had retired when he was fifty-five but didn’t want to stop there – he felt he might drop down dead if he didn’t stay awake, alert and continuously seek to learn and to broaden his knowledge. He said that he had a new lease on life and indeed an exciting and fulfilling life purely because of his desire to learn.

Henry Ford said, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.”

Learning broadens our minds and our lives. It is what gives us a positive outlook on life and in a way helps drive our ambitions forward. It is our food and our sustenance and is what keeps us alive. The minute we close our eyes to learning then we develop what is called tunnel vision and our views, ideas and perceptions become narrower and narrower.

In the work that I do I come across all sorts of people from all walks of life and it is interesting to note how they react to learning and to learning new techniques, new ways of doing things that they had been doing for years. Some jump at it with an open mind ready to grasp onto knowledge and information in an instant. Some sit back, with arms folded across their chests and frowns upon their faces, throwing up all sorts of excuses as to why they have to learn something they already know and for which they have a certificate or years of experience in doing. And there are those who are totally convinced that learning is the domain of the young and as twenty-five, thirty and forty year-olds, they are passed it – over the hill!

Learning is a part of life. We learn to live life. We learn to be able to take on new tasks, new skills, to improve our lives. We learn in order that we may do things in a better way and to not repeat the mistakes of the past.

In the workplace it is important to give people a greater understanding of the opportunities that can come with learning and to learning from past mistakes. When I held a program on customer relations for a client recently, it became clear to me that most of the participants in the program thought that once a customer complaint had been handled correctly and “fixed” - that the problem was solved and that it was over. I explained to them that it is all very well to be able to rectify a complaint, but in doing so and after the whole experience of the complaint they have to ask themselves the question - did they learn anything from this? What has this taught them so that they can prevent a similar situation arising? How has this helped them to do their job better?

“Learning without thought is labour lost” – Confucius

The learning process here has to take into account a certain follow-up to it. It’s not just a matter of asking if everyone understands the problem and is satisfied as to how to handle it. Most people in a group situation will automatically say yes and that’s that, waiting for the next item on the program. They may well understand and be satisfied, but it pays to go a few steps further and to ask them to explain what it is that they learned from this episode. Get to the heart of the matter, get them thinking about it to ensure that each individual grasps the entirety of what is being discussed in order to gain true and lasting benefit.

I remember when I was growing up my father would ask me when I came home from school at the end of the day, “What did you learn today?” I could never get away with a quick and simple answer. Not that it was a trick question or that my Dad commanded lengthy explanations of the day’s activities. He was genuinely interested in what the day had given me in terms of knowledge and information and what experiences I had had and whether they had taught me anything. I was always happy to have these conversations and from them I suppose I gained a deeper insight into the value of learning and being open to it from a very young age. My father, having put himself through school in the 1920s, studying for hours every night over a kerosene lamp, has never lost - even in his eightieth year - his thirst for knowledge and desire to learn.

When I was growing up school was all about reading books, using slope-cards and ink-wells at school. Log tables were used as there were no calculators and indeed, a slide rule was all the fashion. When I first began work the computer was the machinery housed on the three upper floors of the building where people wearing special coloured jackets would only be allowed to enter. These days we seem to have every resource at our fingertips in order to learn and to improve our knowledge. The amount of information that is so readily available to us through the world wide web and through technology is phenomenal and there is literally no excuse for not reaching out and seizing this tremendous opportunity to learn.

In the words of Alvin Toffler,

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Have a great week!

Christina can be contacted by email at christina.dodd@ incorptraining.com or directly at Incorp Training Associates in Bangkok at Tel (0) 2652 1867-8 Fax (0) 2652 1870. Programs and services can be found at www.incorptraining.com

Social Commentary by Khai Khem

Body-beautiful after 40 can be more trouble than it’s worth

Most Fridays a group of us get together for breakfast to rehash the week, share funny stories, or exchange information over a plate of scrambled eggs and a couple of quarts of local beer. We call it the Breakfast Club and the core group exists of a cross section of Pattaya residents of different nationalities and walks of life. Newcomers are always welcome and invariably someone brings a friend who hasn’t been in Thailand very long. Last week a lady from Italy asked us why all the Western men strolling along the new beach walkway in Pattaya had such big bellies. And she was staring straight at me. How on earth would I know?

I kept my eyes on my plate and meticulously scraped the last bit of egg from the edge. I held my breath hoping someone else could come up with the answer. Since most of us at the table could have benefited from more hours at the gym and less beer for breakfast, the pregnant pause became unbearable. This young gorgeously lithe creature was dressed in a skimpy designer swim-suit from Milan and carried a beach-bag that probably cost more than most of us earned in a month. She definitely lent a decorative charm to our informal get together. Having just arrived in the city for a short holiday of sun and fun, I felt her question was innocently naive. She hadn’t meant to offend.

One of the leering bachelors at the table sucked in his gut, jumped in and bailed me out. He explained that as men age, concealment is gut-instinct. But men’s jiggling bellies are hard to hide in a tropical beach city where casual dress is the norm.

“As we get older, even those of us who once considered ourselves on the trim side tend first to get a little loose around the middle, then droopy, then flabby, then paunchy and then, well, ho-ho-ho. At Christmas time our younger friends ask us to play Santa Claus,” he gasped. He was running out of oxygen and I knew his retort would be a short one.

I could have added, that men really can’t complain. They can suck in their bellies. But women can’t suck in their thighs, hips or other places where their excess tends to accumulate.

And the most accepted, eternally fashionable garments made - sport jackets and suit coats - seem almost as though they were designed to hide the particular bodily expansion to which men are prone. I also privately wanted to shred her beach-bag with my teeth and replace it with my hardly-ever-used membership card to the Hard Body Gym. The thought cheered me up.

Yet clearly, in certain circles, a man cannot be considered sexy unless he has a rippled “six-pack” abdomen. Men’s health magazines, for example, repeatedly run exhortations containing ways to lose love handles and spare tires so their stomachs will come to resemble those featured prominently on every single self-esteem-battering cover.

I had some of my own questions to ask. Is the emphasis on taut male tummies a creation of youth-obsessed Madison Avenue style advert campaigns or something genuine, widespread and even biologically explicable?

Sexual attractiveness and overall physical condition aside, do women really think less of a man when they notice he’s letting himself lop over his belt? Do women sense that when men hit their 40s, a lot of them reach an “oh, what the heck, who needs to be considered sexy anymore?” stage of peaceful, portly resignation when the increasing effort required to keep flat just doesn’t seem worth it anymore? And when, if ever, do women enter that stage?

Does a man look fatter to women when he wears a T-shirt or golf shirt tucked in so that the lines of his clothing define his equatorial amplitudes? Or does he look fatter when he wears such shirts muumuu style, so you can’t really be sure what’s under the billowing fabric?

Another woman at the table turned out to have a sense of humor. She hails from Nova Scotia and is so happy to live near water that doesn’t freeze over she could care less about a few jiggling tummies on Pattaya Beach. She said the mere phrase ‘taut male tummies’ makes her blush and a nice girl never notices any part of a man’s anatomy except, hmmmm, maybe his ear.

Bent on soothing some male egos Nova Scotia went on to explain that she is never fooled by the bellies camped under the tent-style T-shirts but certainly doesn’t judge a man’s sex appeal by such superficial criteria. She might be just as impressed with what was written on the T-shirt.

Suddenly this older, rather plain but generous lady had the room’s attention. Anyone over 40 years old knows that keeping fat at bay is about as easy as trying to keep ants out of a picnic on the grass. Most people over 40 know that at a certain age, a body is like an old house. Physical improvement isn’t as important as maintenance. Just trying to keep things looking respectable gets harder all the time. While you’re fixing one thing, something else is falling apart. After a while, it’s just plain futile to keep everything looking good.

So perhaps we shouldn’t be so judgmental about the mid-life bellies among us. We could learn to view them as appealingly vulnerable. As our friend from Canada put it, some women actually prefer a teddy bear to a fox.

Women’s World:A mother’s worst nightmare Part 4

by Lesley Warmer

For the last two parts of my story about Emma I returned to England. I found it very stressful not being with her and my memories were only of seeing her helpless in ICU. Although I had regularly spoken to her on the phone I needed to see her for myself; fortunately for me I had a very understanding boss.

I wanted to be with Emma when she had the reconstruction surgery on her face and hand because I knew how nervous she was. This time I went to Massic Travel and booked a ticket with EVA air; it was much cheaper and the service on the flight was great.

I knew that Emma was only home for one day before going to Exeter Hospital for the first of her possible 6 operations, this one was for her hand and eye.

I arrived at the house and walked into the room with some trepidation but I was pleasantly surprised to see her sitting up and quite chirpy. She won’t take off her baseball cap, as she hates her loss of hair. This is being sorted out with hair extensions this week so she’s looking forward to that.

As I studied her wounds I could see several changes, the bones in her shoulder had moved around considerably, the shoulder blade had turned and now protruded from her back and the collarbone was sticking up causing a large lump on her shoulder. The index finger on her right hand has shrunk to half the length due to the shrinking of the tendon and loss of bone, the end of her thumb was black and they told her it would just drop off! (She was horrified). Her eye was pulled down from the bottom lid and like a patchwork quilt on the upper lid, caused by the hasty patching up in ER, but she was smiling and walking around.

I asked her about her ear, which looked worse than before, and she said that while in ICU in the later days she tried to get out of bed one night not realising that her legs would not support her and hit her head on a cabinet splitting her ear more. One could ask where the nursing staff was at this time...

Her main conversation appears to be her frustration with her lack of memory. She wants to know what happened. She said she couldn’t remember anything about the day of the accident. Obviously she didn’t want to remember the pain but she felt she needed to know what caused the accident and what happened to her. I asked why, and she answered, “Because I have been told where my injuries come from but I don’t know for myself. I could be told any story and I wouldn’t know if it’s true or not. It’s a horrible feeling.” She doesn’t complain and still feels that she is lucky to be alive, it could have been worse; the psychologist thinks she’s an extremely sane and sensible young lady (must take after her mum). Although I know in some quiet moments while alone she feels sad and cries, and says that she would like her life back.

I asked her what her first memory was. She said, “I don’t have any in ICU, so that’s 3 weeks of my life gone. It’s so weird, I’ve lost that time, it’s such an unreal feeling. I suppose my first real memory is when I was moved into a normal ward.”

(Continued next week)