Left Neglected Part 8

"Sarah, good to see you awake. How are you feeling?"

Anxious, tired, scared.

"Good."

He clicks his pen and writes something down. Oh, I'm being interviewed. I'd better concentrate. Whatever he's testing me on, I want to get an A. I want to go home. I want to get back to work.

"How would you say I'm doing?" I ask.

"Good. Things look pretty good considering. You came in pretty banged up. You had a depressed skull fracture and some bleeding on your brain. We had to go in and drain it. We got it all, but with the bleed and the inflammation, you sustained some damage. Your scan shows you've lost some real estate. But you're lucky the insult was on the right and not the left, or you probably wouldn't be talking to me right now."

I think his answer started with "good," but I'm having a hard time hearing any semblance of "good" in any of the words he uttered after that, even as I play it back. "Brain damage." That sounds like the opposite of "good" to me. I think he also said "Lucky." I feel dizzy.

"Can you get my husband? I want him to hear this with me."

"I'm right here," says Bob.

I turn to see him, but he's not there. The only people in the room are me and the handsome Dr. Kwon.

"Why are you looking at the chair? I'm over here," says Bob.

"Bob? I can't find you."

"Stand on the other side of me," says Dr. Kwon.

"There you are!" I say, like we're playing a game of peek-a-boo.

Weird that I couldn't see him a second ago. Maybe my vision was affected by the accident. Maybe he was standing too far back. Dr. Kwon adjusts my bed so that I'm sitting upright.

"Sarah, focus on my nose and tell me when you see my finger."

He's holding his index finger up near my ear.

"I see it."

"How about now?"

"Yes."

"Now?"

"No."

"How about now?"

"No."

"Is she blind?" asks Bob.

Of course I'm not blind. What kind of crazy question is that? Dr. Kwon flashes a light into my eyes. I study his black coffee eyes as he studies something about mine.

"Follow my light. Good. No, the areas of her brain responsible for vision weren't damaged, and her eyes look fine."

He pulls out a sheet of paper from his clipboard, places it on my tray table, wheels the table in front of me, and hands me a pen. Uppercase and lowercase letters are scattered across the page.

"Sarah, can you circle all the A's for me?"

I do this.

"Are you sure you've found them all?" he asks.

I check my work.

"Yes."

He pulls out another sheet.

"Can you draw a vertical line through the middle of each of these horizontal lines?"

I divide the nine lines in half. I look up, ready to ace the next puzzle.

"All done? Okay, let's move this tray out of the way. Can you hold both arms straight out for me, palms up?"

I do this.

"Are you holding both arms out?"

"Yes."

"Is she paralyzed?" asks Bob.

Again, what kind of nonsensical question is that to ask? Did he not just see me move? Dr. Kwon taps my arm and leg with a small rubber hammer.

"No, she's got some weakness on the left, but that should come back with time and rehab. She has Left Neglect. It's a pretty common condition for patients who've suffered damage to the right-hemisphere, usually from a hemorrhage or stroke. Her brain isn't paying attention to anything on her left. 'Left' doesn't exist to her."

"What do you mean, 'it doesn't exist'?" asks Bob.

"Exactly that. It's not there to her. She won't notice you if you're standing to her left, she won't touch the food on the left side of her plate, and she might not even believe that her left arm and leg belong to her."

"Because 'left' doesn't exist to her?" asks Bob.

"Right," says Dr. Kwon. "I mean, yes."

"Will it come back?" asks Bob.

"It might, it might not. With some patients, we see symptoms resolve over the first few weeks as inflammation goes down, and the brain heals. But with others, it persists, and the best you can do is learn to live with it."

"With no left," says Bob.

"Yes."

"She doesn't seem to notice that it's missing," says Bob.

"Yes, that's true for most patients in the acute phase immediately following the injury. She's mostly unaware of her unawareness. She's not aware that the left side of everything is missing. To her, it's all there, and everything is normal."

I may be unaware of some unawareness, but Dr. Kwon and Bob seem unaware that I'm still here.

"Do you know you have a left hand?" Bob asks me.

"Of course I know I have a left hand," I say, embarra.s.sed that he keeps asking these ridiculous questions.

But then I consider this ridiculous question. Where is my left hand? I have no idea. Oh my G.o.d, where is my left hand? How about my left foot? That's also missing. I wiggle my right toes. I try to send the same message to my left foot, but my brain returns it to sender. Sorry, no such address.

"Bob, I know I have a left hand, but I have no idea where it is."

CHAPTER 9.

I've been in the hospital for twelve days now, and I've moved from the ICU to the hospital's neurology unit where I've been Dr. Kwon's pet guinea pig for the past couple of days. He wants to learn more about Left Neglect before they move me out of this wretched room and over to rehab. He says there's not a lot understood about this condition, which is news that I find more than a little depressing. But maybe he'll learn something from me that will advance the clinical understanding of Neglect. And maybe that will help me. I'm also happy to cooperate because learning more about my condition only involves questions, puzzles, pen, and paper and does not involve needles, blood draws, or brain scans. And it keeps me occupied for a good while, time that would otherwise be filled with nothing but obsessive worrying about work, missing Bob and the kids, and staring at the fluorescent light and peeled paint on the ceiling. So Dr. Kwon and I have been spending lots of quality time together.

As I answer questions and do word searches, I try to join Dr. Kwon and find it oddly fascinating instead of hopelessly terrifying that I never notice or include anything on the left. I'm not even aware that I've ignored anything until Dr. Kwon or one of my therapists or nurses tells me what I've missed. Then, when I realize the magnitude of what isn't there to me, instead of dissolving in a puddle of my own tears or wailing This is bad, this is really, really bad, I force the most positive thing I can think of. Usually something like, Wow. It feels like the mayor of Doomsville is offering me a key to the city, but I'm doing my best to stay out of town.

I do enjoy the drawing tests. It feels like a million years ago that I carried an artist's sketchpad everywhere I went. I majored in economics in college, but I took just as many courses in graphic design, art, and art history. I try imagining where in my cluttered attic those pads might be stored, but I can't find them. Maybe they're on the left. I hope I didn't throw them out.

Dr. Kwon asks me to draw a flower, a clock, a house, a face.

"You're good," he says.

"Thanks."

"Did you draw a whole face?"

"Yes."

I look at my picture with pride and love. I drew Lucy. As I admire her features, doubt creeps into my consciousness.

"Didn't I?" I ask.

"No. How many eyes do people have?"

"Two."

"Did you draw two?"

I look at my picture of Lucy.

"I think so."

He clicks his pen and writes. He's writing something negative about my drawing of Lucy Goose, and no one should do that. I push the paper toward him.

"You draw a face," I say.

He draws a simple smiley, done in two seconds.

"Did you draw a whole face?" I ask.

"Yes."

I click my pen as emphatically as I can, high in the air, and then pretend to write my evaluation on an invisible clipboard.

"What are you writing, Dr. Nickerson?" he asks, feigning deep concern.

"Well, don't faces have ears, eyebrows, hair? I'm afraid you have a very serious but fascinating condition, doctor."

He laughs and adds a tongue sticking out from the bottom of the line for the mouth.

"True, true. Our brains normally don't need every piece of information to a.s.sume a whole. Like our blind spot. We all have a blind spot where our optic nerve leaves the retina, but we don't normally notice this blank s.p.a.ce in our field of vision because our brains fill in the picture," Dr. Kwon says. "That's probably what you're doing. You're relying on only the right half to a.s.sume a whole, and your brain is unconsciously filling in the blanks. Wonderful observation. Truly fascinating."

While I'm enjoying his attention and flattery, I know that what excites a nerdy doctor will probably be perceived as freakish and scary by the world outside this room. I want to draw both of Lucy's eyes. I want to hug Charlie with two hands, kiss both of Linus's feet, and see all of Bob. And I can't get away with reading only the right half of an Excel spreadsheet. I need my brain to see the left again, wherever it is, and stop making huge a.s.sumptions. a.s.sumptions only get everyone into a lot of trouble.

TODAY'S LUNCH IS CHICKEN, RICE, and apple juice. The chicken needs salt, the rice needs soy sauce, and the apple juice could use a generous shot of vodka. But I apparently have high blood pressure, and I'm not allowed any salt or alcohol. I eat and drink every bland thing they bring me. I need to get my strength back. I'm moving to the rehab hospital tomorrow, and from what I hear, it's going to be a lot of work. I can't wait. As much as I like Dr. Kwon, this guinea pig wants out of her cage forever.

Dr. Kwon comes in to check on me before his rounds.

"How was your lunch?" he asks.

"Good."

"Did you use the knife to cut your chicken?"

"No, I used the side of the fork."

Click. He writes down this fascinating piece of data.

"Did you eat everything?"

"Uh-huh."

"Are you full?"

I shrug. I'm not, but I don't want seconds.