Michelle Philpots starts each day with no memory of the day before, the result of a rare variety of amnesia which helped inspire the 2004 film "50 First Dates."

For more than three decades, Michelle Philpots has not been able to create new memories. After two motor accidents — one in 1985 and a second in 1990 — the traumatic brain injuries she suffered led to the development of aggressively persistent epilepsy and a severe decline in memory retention. By 1994, she lost her ability to form long-term memories.

Since then, Philpots’ life has become a strategic routine of calendars and Post-It notes, and she lost her job because she could not remember any of the work she had done. Meanwhile, Philpots’ husband has to convince her daily that they are married by using a photo album.

If it all

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