‘I thought I was Elvis’ twin’: Michael Moore’s devastating brain condition

Michael Moore believed he was Elvis Presley’s twin – then he thought he’d turned into a cornflake. It may sound funny, but there’s a heartbreaking reason why.

Lynda and Michael Moore at The Inflatable Church on Valentine's Day renewing their vows. Picture: Russell Millard

Michael Moore believed he was the twin of Elvis Presley – he told The Advertiser he can remember the pair sharing a womb.

Later he turned into a cornflake and had to hide from people who wanted to eat him.

For the 62-year-old hallucinations were not uncommon and deciphering between reality and fiction was difficult.

Mr Moore has LGI1 auto-immune encephalitis, a condition where your immune system attacks your brain, and he said he is the only South Australian with the condition.

“You can see there is a degree of madness associated with it,” Mr Moore said.

Mr Moore and his wife of 10 years, Lynda, who he met at work, attended a Fringe display called The Inflatable Church to renew their vows on Valentine’s Day.

“I wanted to try and make a new memory that I hope Michael can retain,” Ms Moore said.

The couple did this because Mr Moore cannot remember anything from 2019 onwards.

“I used to read a lot, now I can’t really because two pages in I forget what I read two pages beforehand,” he said.

“If I do read a book I have to take notes all the way through. Watching movies is the same, I can’t follow them.

“I get lost easily. I wouldn’t have been able to navigate from Sandy Creek to the city, my sense of navigation is completely gone.

“I’m pretty much entirely reliant on Lynda and I think if I didn’t have Lynda I probably wouldn’t be able to live at home.

“The forgetfulness is the worst thing, just not being able to retain memories.

“It’s a bit frustrating.”

The Sandy Creek man writes in a diary every day to try to remember what he’s done, otherwise in a couple of days the memories he’s created would be gone.

“We do take a lot more photographs,” Ms Moore said.

The pair met while working together 14 years ago. Picture: Russell Millard

Ms Moore said the couple’s life “turned upside down” on May 4, 2022, when Ms Moore came home to find Mr Moore extremely confused.

He told her he had been sleeping, when Ms Moore knew he’d been on the phone.

She called the ambulance and he was rushed to the Lyell McEwin Hospital were he was placed in an induced coma for four days.

“Leading up to that … he had what we thought were panic attacks and he’d have 30 to 40 a day,” Ms Moore said.

“It turns out they were actual seizures … facial brachial dystonic seizures.”

Ms Moore said when her husband was having a seizure he would feel an “overwhelming feeling of impending doom and a feeling that he was going to die”.

Mr Moore continued to stay in ICU for 17 days before he was moved to a ward on a different level of the hospital. While moving Mr Moore, the orderlies brought him in the lift.

“He kept thinking we were still in the lift for four days,” Ms Moore said.

When Mr Moore eventually returned home, he didn’t know where he lived.

In June 2022 his hallucinations stopped.

Mr Moore spends some of his time at Willo’s Men’s Shed, a group bringing men together to socialise, make things and share meals.

“The men in the shed, they keep an eye on me,” he said.

Each day Mr Moore must have a two to three hour nap to continue on with the day and since his diagnosis he’s had to stop work.

“I worry about decline,” he said.

“Once you decide it’s not going to get better, than you start worrying about what it is going to do … it will probably mean a care home for me.”

Originally published as ‘I thought I was Elvis’ twin’: Michael Moore’s devastating brain condition