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by Stephanie Smith
CNN
February 5, 2010
For more than 20 years, former San Francisco 49ers lineman George Visger has lived his life out of hundreds of small yellow notebooks. In them he scrawls the minutiae of his daily life: "4:45 am left house. 2 stops to find coffee and a roll. Paper work till 9:25. 10:05 Ed called."
The notebooks are the last vestige of his memory.
"I always have them. They sit in my back pockets," said Visger, 51. "The movie '50 First Dates,' this has been my life for 28 years. I get up in the morning and I have no clue what I have to do that day. If it's not written down it doesn't exist."
Visger said his memory began fading in 1982. During his brief, injury-shortened career playing for the 49ers, he said, a jarring tackle caused a concussion.
"I went into a coma and almost died," said Visger. "At one point I was given last rites."
It was the culmination of a life using his head -- to tackle -- that almost killed Visger. His is one of several cases of ex-NFL athletes struggling with memory loss, depression and sudden, frightening bouts of rage. Experts believe the reason for the brain damage is concussion.
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