Friend's ICU cheat sheet goes viral, brings laughs & tears - 13abc.com Toledo (OH) News, Weather and Sports

A memory "cheat sheet" written by a Toledo woman for her best friend who was in an intensive care unit suffering from severe short-term memory loss is making people laugh and cry all over the world.

The two best friends sat down with 13abc's Sanaa Orra for their first TV interview on Saturday.

The note is titled "Read This," and people across the globe are doing just that.  From The Huffington Post to Gawker to countless blogs and even England's Daily Mail Online, they are all buzzing about a memory loss letter written by a woman many are calling the ultimate best friend.

Kerstyne Kromer wrote the letter. "I mean I really just did it because, one I didn't want her freaking out and not be able to get ahold of anybody and not knowing what's going on. I mean, I can't imagine waking up in the hospital and not knowing why."

Kerstyne put together the thoughtful, yet witty memory cheat sheet for her best friend Joleen Delgado. Joleen suffered severe short-term memory loss at the hospital back in 2011 due to medication mishap.

Kerstyne says her friend kept texting her with questions. "So she's repeating the same questions and I would have to tell her to scroll up, scroll up. I answered all of these. Scroll up. But she would have to scroll up over 200 messages."

Joleen says it's been a long haul and she appreciates the kind words from all around the world. "The last couple of years have been really hard on our family. We've encountered a lot of walls in my medical care and to kinda have some people being really encouraging and saying, he we care about you guys, has been pretty nice."

Joleen continues to struggle with short bouts of memory loss and posted the old letter on an online thread discussing the issue. That's when the letter went viral with thousands sharing the story all over the Internet.

"I started calling Kerstyne like crazy." Joleen says. "Like, dude you gotta get up, because it's like everywhere!"

The popularity can be attributed to the playful answers to Joleen's most commonly asked questions.

"I wanted her to be like reading it and laughing and not totally nervous and scared. I tried to inject a little bit more humor into it. And make her laugh to keep it light."

One thing that seems to be ticking people online is that Joleen was constantly fascinated with the hospital floors.

"So I tried to like mention that because she did keep texting me about the same thing. She kept mentioning it while I was there." Kerstyne says. "I was like, the floors are not that cool."

Joleen can't remember why she was so fascinated with the flooring in the hospital. "Apparently it had really nice floors and apparently it was very important to me." She laughs. "I'm actually kind of sad about hat, because I feel it would be life-changing to know."