Yes, this is the basis of the fundamentalist Christians who engaged in faith healing not so long ago. That’s not to say it didn’t work, or, like so many things demonstrating profitability, that it didn’t suffer from waves of Charlatan imposters. The fact remains that faith, most notably called the placebo by most doctors, is a known healing agent of formidable power.
But core belief takes a beating in the din and agony, alongside the life and death urgency so constant that it becomes casual. Many big needles perforate that which you hold dear, which is your self, which seems tentatively connected to the world by the little aquarium tubes leading to the electronic brain, flashing and pinging in neurotic fibrillation that seems eerily choreographed with the rest of the sensory onslaught.
Rachel is gripped on the arm at three-minute intervals by the blood-pressure monitor. She is surrounded by an emotionally repressed juggernaut that knows what’s best; under siege by superiors, she is told to sit and be still. Rachel says she can’t do anything before going to the bathroom. Betty appears from the melee with a bedpan. Rachel tells her to go away and stay away. We wait a few minutes or many, because time is endless; it won’t stop and fails to proceed. All that is past is but a moment, like life at the end, seen through a fish-eye lens.
A tall, thin orderly of apparent inner-city descent comes to fetch us up to the infusion CAT scan chamber. His nametag says: Anthony. He’s different from the others, more relaxed, free of urgency and the need for self-defense. His speech pattern is also uniquely removed from the language of fatal imminence or the probability greater than zero that Rachel will croak at any instant. He alone is attuned to the voice of the mutable object. “I have to pee,” Rachel tells him.
“That’s easy enough,” Anthony says, and we stop down the hall at the bathroom. Her leads are connected to hanging bags and a portable monitor, like a hat rack on wheels. He opens the door and wheels it in then helps her off the gurney and into the bathroom. He is the first to recognize personal dignity and the spoken needs of the patient since our arrival. His demeanor calms us, and a two-minute piss relieves certain pressure. I think he could be fired for his behavior.
In a few minutes we enter the high-tech chamber of the infusion CAT scan. Marginally composed with bladder relief and some respect, we proceed under blazing lights, probing probes and busy hands. The iodine injection goes into her neck. I’m told to leave. I decline. Well, then, wait back there with the technician. But don’t say anything. “What would I say?” I ask. But they won’t respond to a nuisance.
Wired and primed with Day-Glo, Rachel is fed slowly into the machine. Slice by slice she appears on the monitor till she calls out, “I’m cold! I’m freezing!”
A technician calls back, “Don’t move, honey! Don’t move now!” The process is halted while Anthony and a woman step out to cover her with a blanket. Meanwhile, the technician at the monitor explains that the iodine is kept cold, so it chills the patient, running up the veins into the brain. I can only imagine; the place is airless as a bunker, causing hot flashes—in me; the staff is apparently adapted. I ponder cold iodine in my veins.
Anthony comes back to the safe area. “Now you get to see what’s on her mind,” he says.
Her mind is mostly symmetrical except for the low-pressure front building from the east-southeast threatening landfall by midnight. Nurse Betty materializes at my side, in my ear. Gently, she whispers, “You have to take over. She’s demented. She has memory loss and depressed speech centers. She’s irrational. You need to make the decisions.”
I turn and speak clearly, for I, too, may soon call on witnesses in a process that may well judge behavior here. “I will not make a decision for surgery without her approval. I assure you her behavior is no less rational than the scene surrounding us. She is in full possession of her faculties.” I wince inside at my own hopeful longing. “I will assist and facilitate where I can. In the meantime, we appreciate your concern. Now please, explain the process and options. I’m all ears. Short of that, give us some breathing room.”
“She’s about to die.”
“Betty, what have I just asked you to do?”
“Let’s not fight. I’ve seen these things. I know you love her, and she’s feisty. That makes it worse, because if she doesn’t die, she’ll be left with nothing. You don’t think I see who you are? I do. You’re vital people. I love that. Please!”
Betty pauses for drama and another moment of knowing. I ask, “Left with nothing? You mean . . . a drooler?”
“Yes. But her cognizance won’t be affected. She’ll know. She’ll need round-the-clock care for everything, and she’ll know.” I control my breathing in the daze of nurse Betty’s uppercut. I meet her eye to eye but can’t speak. Maybe I’m too weak to take control and opt for the knife over Rachel’s veto. Maybe I fear the years of guilt ahead if she dies on the table. But I don’t think so. Some stories are told without the narrator knowing where the story is headed. Looking back at this juncture is no different than living this juncture. Neither death nor fear is at issue here. It’s information and dignity. Of course more is known in hindsight, because nobody would take a minute for dialogue at the time. We are left in the dark, as if the dark is where we belong. So, I stand pat. “Why can’t you tell me our options, or what comes next?”
Nurse Betty listens benignly. She sees and drifts off, shaking her head.
I’m beside myself with uncertainty. I can easily defend my mate against the urgent needs of nurses and the youthful ambition of a surgeon whose speech impediment may indicate cranial pressure, possibly subarachnoid. But I feel increasingly defenseless against the phantom. It grows and populates around me. I can’t breathe in here, which makes this place a perfect culture for darkness and fear. Evil loves a vacuum. This I know.
My mate is now pierced with steel needles at six or eight places on her body, and her greatest concern so far is for her hair. I will not question her rationale, because I can’t, because I shouldn’t, because we share the greatest trust, which is trusting our lives to each other. So I won’t yet question her mind, but I prepare to take over. The dark spirit moves the ball down the field at will. We are taking a pounding here. I don’t know how long I can or should fend them off. Worried about her hair? That’s crazy.
Maybe my confidence and belief are challenged more than those of my mate. I feel a tickle in my soul, call it growing doubt on her mental stability, that which I ardently defend. She touches the left side of her head now; is this a gesture of fear for the imminent loss of hair, or is she soothing a deep ache? She mumbles over our quick departure from this place and the many fine draughts awaiting and the importance of doing what you so look forward to doing and corned beef for me. Surgery? Are you out of your mind? Surgery is for those with no alternative, and we have proven ourselves apart from that.
She looks up at me. “I hate this. I just hate it.”
“Me too,” I assure her.
“I don’t know why we’re doing this. I’m not having surgery. I feel fine. Besides, I wouldn’t have surgery anyway.” I must consider her wishes, her values, her rationale, and I fairly succeed, until she blurts, “They want to shave my head!” I think she fails to recognize the gravity upon us. I’m thinking three plays ahead now, can’t help it; perception spirals downward as swift and steep as a fall through the looking glass. We are half empty. I try the invasive scenario on for size. Let’s say she’s irrational, then what? I’ll tell you what; a brain surgery could be authorized by me, and death or debilitation may result. But what if she’s rational? What if mean old Mr. Death is only toying with our natural rhythm? My skin crawls with prospects for wrong judgment. I wish we could fast forward into next week.
Out of infusion CAT scan we descend again to the front. Rachel now shows increasing wear and tear. Is this the result of brow beating and iodine injected to her brain? Or is the bleed increasing pressure on her speech center? Her eyes glaze with a weariness I’ve never seen in her.
She s
hakes her head.
I tell her we may stay the night. She shakes again. I tell her that if she ever trusted anyone, she should trust me now. I tell her we’re together and I’ve never felt stronger or clearer or more ready to make the right call.
“Play it somewhere else,” she says, and I smile. I’m proud of her vigor so clearly sustained in the face of very long odds. But I plead for help and tell her that I can’t fight her and the knives at the same time.
“So? Who’s fighting? What do we need to stay for? You don’t need to stay. What do I need to stay for?”
“For observation. Listen! They want me to take authority away from you. They want me to consent to surgery. I said I wouldn’t do that. And I won’t. But you have to help me. Please, help me. I think . . . I think we need the results of the infusion CAT scan—”
“I already had a scat thing!”
“Yes. You’ve had two of them.”
“I had two?”
Oy.
“Yes. We need the results of the one you just had.”
“That was a scat thing? It was . . . different.”
“Yes. This machine is more sophisticated. More information. We need that. I’ll tell you something else. We may need the angiogram too.”
Anthony pushes the gurney. He interrupts here—“Oh, you’ll need the angiogram. They got to have that.” Even those you think are different here let you know sooner or later that they’re part of the same process. We’ve been pressured toward an unspoken inevitability now for five hours without five minutes of privacy or reasonable explanation.
“Ohh . . .” she whines.
“Listen. I need some time. I need to make some calls. I need more data so I can make some decisions. But I don’t know who to call. Who can I call?”
“I don’t know. We need to get closed from here. If we can be closed I can froth this . . . thing.”
“Okay. But not yet. We need to stay the night—”
“Why! I don’t want to.”
“Because I’m scared. I’m very scared, dear. You don’t believe these people, and I don’t know what to believe. But you have had a massive cerebral hemorrhage. We can’t leave. I can’t leave. You can’t leave if you might go off. We don’t know that you won’t.”
“Where would I go?”
“I don’t mean you! I mean the bubble in your brain. Kablooey. Capiche?”
She looks glum. She pouts. Anthony wheels the gurney back into place in the central arena and draws a curtain around us for the idea of privacy, leaving us to our domestic squabble, which is all it is. Anyone here can tell you that; it’s natural, they would say, a predictable result of the tension and deathly potential. We’re alone for moments when the worst knife yet slices my heart; she cries, not in heaving sobs but in simple emission of tears. “I really don’t like this one bit,” she says. “I really want to leave here, and you’re not helping me.”
“Please forgive me. I know I may be doing the wrong thing, but I hope to correct myself as soon as I can. I need a little time. That’s all. And I need your help for tonight. Just tonight. Please. I need to make some calls. Please.”
An Indian woman enters our curtained space, as many people will, by whisking the curtain back and stepping forward. How can you knock on a curtain? And who has time for common courtesy anyway? No, we must press on; privacy is expendable, and the feeling is that dignity is equally discounted here, with far greater urgency at hand. This woman does not wear a red dot on her forehead but has dark, bright eyes, a complexion to match and a pronounced nose. She’s younger than we are, but not by much. “Hello. I’m Dr. Visnawara. Will you please squeeze my fingers?”
Four others follow her in, specialists, perhaps. But they say nothing. They circle the gurney and stand there half-smiling like cherubic attendants. Rachel makes her wince with a finger squeeze and recites the month, the day, the year and the name of the President of the United States of America.
Dr. Visnawara smiles and makes a note. She touches Rachel’s head, front and center, and draws her finger around to the left side and down in what feels like a trauma-center rendition of the consigliori’s kiss. Pardon me, but her frigid ambience is palpable. She smiles with practiced confidence approaching bliss, and though we wait for an elaboration on this personal contact, the bliss is all we get. This touch of a learned finger lingers like a wet spot in a breeze, chilling. After an agonizing interlude of presumptive silence, Dr. Visnawara says, “We need the angiogram. I think you’ll do fine. This does not look to me like a complicated procedure. We do this all the time, you know. All the time. Straight in.” She scissors two fingers of her right hand—straight in. “We think you do not have a tumor. We think your vital signs are very good.”
“You think that because I sold you five years ago. I don’t want my hair shreaved.”
“Oh, don’t worry. It will grow back. Oh, you will do very good, I think. Very very good. I must tell you that you do have a chance of dying, but you also had a chance of dying yesterday and today, and you did very good on those. You must also know that we sometimes have morbidity on these procedures. But that is much better than dying. And I think you have done very good so far. So maybe you will do good tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“We must have surgery tomorrow. We should have surgery tonight, but we’re very busy now, and you are doing all right, and we need the angiogram before surgery, so, tomorrow. All right? Good night?”
“Wait a minute,” I say. “We’ve only heard about the surgery in oblique reference. Nobody has told us about the surgery or the options. We haven’t yet decided that we want surgery.”
“But you must. Otherwise she will surely die. Five percent per year. Twenty years. You have been told this. We have it on your chart. I must go now. Someone else will be around to answer your questions tomorrow.” She leaves to meet her busy schedule. The entourage files out like goslings as I realize we’ve been disclaimed, legally, before witnesses.
“But we haven’t agreed!”
Rachel is about to cry, really cry, not so much with realization, I think, as frustration. They won’t leave her alone, but they won’t talk to her or recognize her. She is, to them, irrational, ostensibly vegetative. She still speaks, but the voice is not connected to the person in the legal sense. Unless of course someone might want to make a case. In that case, she has been read her rights, which are indeed greater than zero, evidenced by the place granted to her in the machination of the juggernaut. “Go away,” she tells me. “I want to be alone.”
We are surrounded again by agonizing distraction, audible and visible as a train wreck in slo-mo. I smile. I touch her arm. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”
I find the phone booth in the anteroom. I could use my cell phone but could never hear over the wailing and groaning. I could go outside, but that seems too far away for Rachel’s interests. And the payphone inside does have a door that stifles the noise when it closes. I move slowly, stunned, bogged as a runner in a dream. I feel helplessness oozing from my pores. I am stuck on inertia and a stunned inability to take care of things. I could pee in my pants and fit right in. I’m at least cognizant of fundamental delamination, so I go to basics, wondering if I’m still rational. I must first control my breathing. I must dispel the dark spirit and chaos infusing the space around me. I want to yell. I think it might help scare the phantom, but I simply can’t handle an arrest right now, even on a misdemeanor.
I rack my brain for a name of someone who might offer guidance but can think only of well-intentioned friends who would offer solace, sympathy and assistance. Finally, after several long minutes, I recognize brain lock—that mode of mental shutdown in which the mind seeks the obvious solution but can’t find it any more than a fly can fly through a windshield because it’s a fucking fly and insists on the most visible route, banging into the glass straight ahead over and over again because it can so plainly see the life waiting on the other side, till it finally exhausts itself, drops,
rolls over and dies on the dashboard. Only those flies with composure and the intelligence to back off and look sideways have a chance to escape.
Fucking flies.
So I back off and go to low idle, seeking calmness, only calmness, allowing all thoughts to fly away, sideways as it were.
Once calmed, breathing slowly with the mental lockup unlocked, the feeling changes. I wait for direction if not guidance, but like a diver at depth in the dark I can’t tell up from down. I could pump a little air into my buoyancy compensator and let nature take its course, with its love letting me rise slower than my slowest bubbles to the surface—except that this place is out of my depth. I have no buoyancy compensation or coordinates beyond a phone booth in a trauma center. My confusion is real as the greasy surfaces and stale air surrounding me. I wonder if I look unhinged, if I’ll be strapped to a gurney and rushed up for a scratch thing, to be sure.
The light reveals its access route suddenly, as it usually does: Hawaii, where more money is extracted from more believers than at the Vatican. Well, maybe not more than the Vatican, but Hawaii now spawns the biggest industry in who-do, foo foo, aerie faerie, wanna-be, sappy-ass fruitcake snake oil on the face of the earth. I discount it as the next phase of tourism.
Why then does it come to me?
Because the real item also resides in Hawaii. Modern times, population and greed have always spawned imitators of the genuine article. The real McCoy is now as rare as innocence in Times Square. But I know a woman there, Carol, my friend from Aikido. We trained together for years, throwing each other hither and yon. Her grasp of street-level reality does not inspire confidence; she too could be wheeled up to infusion scratch pan in a heartbeat. Yet she is familiar with the invisible world, its population, inclination and contact. She’s psychic—the real item, one who can see the future but won’t take a look because knowing in advance cannot change what will happen—it can only cause anxiety and then some, and then any normal people who find out will think her a loony. Besides that, each look leaves her wasted, ashen and beat for hours or days. I tell her it’s just her period, but she has yet to laugh. She took a look for me once before. I don’t know who else knows of her psychic skill other than she and I. She won’t use it on anything less than dire circumstance, and here we are.
Brainstorm Page 7
