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1
HELENA ACCOMPANIED ME TO the doctor the next week despite my repeated protests that I was okay to go to the appointment on my own. We sat in the waiting room and read magazines. I tried not to convey how nervous I was but Helena picked up on it anyway.
“I’m sure everything’s going to be fine, Dan,” she said.
“I hope so,” I replied. “I have my concerns. This stuff happening to me...it’s not normal.”
“It doesn’t sound all that unusual,” she said. “Maybe it’s like a blood pressure thing or something. I don’t think it’s good for you to get all worked up and come up with your own theories about this. Have you been looking on WebMD? I’ve told you, I think the Internet is a dangerous thing when people start diagnosing themselves.”
“I haven’t been using the Internet,” I said. “I just... I have reason to worry.”
“What reasons?” she asked.
Just then the nurse poked her head out of the door. “Daniel Wells?”
We were brought back to a small exam room where the nurse took my vitals and said the doctor would be in shortly. Doctor Park had been my general practitioner for several years and I trusted his judgement. When he arrived five minutes later he listened carefully as I told him about the fall in the shower and the previous week’s adventure outside the convenience store. At first I simply relayed the same story I had shared with Helena and the police officers. Then, suddenly, I decided to tell more. I guess it had something to do with how scared I was. I figured there was an uncomfortably large chance that I might not have a great deal of time left on the earth.
“Doc,” I started, “Before I fell asleep in the bushes... something happened.”
Helena’s mouth dropped open. “What...what are you talking about, Danny?”
“Go on,” said Doctor Park. “What happened, Daniel?”
“I found myself on the ground, in the dirt outside the convenience store, only it wasn’t the same store. It was...old, like a place people would shop that you’d see in old postcards. Like a...uh...”
“Like a general store?” the doctor asked.
“Yes! An old-fashioned general store. And the lot was just dirt and it was empty. I saw I was naked and I ran and hid. That’s when I fell asleep and when I woke up the officer was standing over me, like I told you.”
Helena looked furious. She was always getting so angry at me...though maybe this time I could give her a pass. “Daniel,” she said, “why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because I was scared,” I said. “I’m still scared. I think I’m losing my mind.”
“Now there’s no reason to jump to conclusions like that,” said Doctor Park. “Let me examine you here and then I’m going to refer you over for a few scans at the hospital. I’m sure we’ll find that everything’s okay. Sometimes bizarre things are just brought on by stress. It’s possible what you thought you experienced was really a half-dream as you wandered over to the side of the parking lot. Like sleep-walking.”
When he put it like that, it did seem plausible. I started to relax for the first time since the incident. Doctor Park put me through a standard physical. At every step, especially when he examined my eyes, I kept expecting him to discover something horrible. When he was done, he smiled at me. “Daniel, I can’t find anything out of the ordinary. As I said, I’ll set you up for some further tests but I would suggest you stop worrying.”
“I’m not thrilled,” said Helena as we walked out of the doctor’s office.
“You’re not thrilled that the doctor told me I seem okay?”
“Well... no, it’s not that. I mean, of course I’m glad he didn’t find anything wrong. But still, with what happened to you... in a weird way I’d feel better if we had some kind of diagnosis. Does that make sense, or am I just a horrible person?”
I smiled at her. “It makes sense...and you’re only a moderately horrible person.”
“Hey!” she said. “I’m the one who’s standing by my husband who likes to run around town in the nude.”
“Yup, that’s me. Town nudist.”
2
In the few days between the visit to the doctor and my schedule tests, I became more and more convinced I was going to die. Though I had no more episodes during that time I became more depressed and moody. Finally Helena called me out on it.
“You need to stop being an asshole,” she said in her inimitable way.
“You don’t understand what I’ve been going through. I’ve seen things during these episodes...”
“Right,” she said. “I know. The general store.”
“Yes but there were other things. Other times.”
“Like what?” she asked.
I waved the question away. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just freaking me out. You’re right though. I’ve been a dick and you deserve better than that. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Just remember that there are two of us in this marriage, and I’m supporting you through all this shit but it’s not fair to me for you to get all down and take it out on me.”
I began my usual defense, calling her out on making the situation about her, but decided to let it go. “Right, okay. Sorry.” I responded with a weak smile.
Two days after that conversation we went to the hospital for the battery of tests Doctor Park had arranged for me. I went through MRI’s, CT scans, blood tests and many of the same physical examinations that Doctor Park had performed previously.
Helena and I sat for over an hour waiting for a doctor to come see me. I was so glad to have her with me as I faced what I was sure would be a devastating diagnosis. Finally, a young doctor came in to the room. His face was expressionless, which I interpreted as representing bad news.
“Mr. Wells,” he said, “We are still waiting for some of the results to come in but I can tell you that you do not appear to have anything dangerously wrong with you.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, then thought about what he had said. “Dangerously wrong? So...there’s something wrong with me that’s not dangerous?”
The doctor smiled. “I wouldn’t say there’s anything ‘wrong,’ exactly. There are a few regions in the back of your brain that are larger than normal.” He saw the look on my face. “I don’t mean any kind of a tumor! This is totally normal, functional tissue. An untrained eye probably wouldn’t see anything unusual. We’re talking about a very slight, though measurable, difference.”
“So, what does it mean? Is that what’s causing my...episodes?”
The doctor nodded. “There’s no way to be one hundred percent certain, but I think so. There is still a great deal we don’t know about the brain and how it works. The parts of your brain that we’re talking about are known to be involved in REM sleep. I think there’s something going on there that’s causing your hallucinations.”
“But, doctor,” said Helena, “can’t you do something? What if this happens to him again?”
“I’m going to give you a prescription for some medication.” He turned to me. “I want you to keep a pill with you at all times. You can get a small container to throw in your pocket. If you feel the problem starting to happen, take a pill. It should suppress some of the activity in that part of your brain, if that is what’s happening. I can’t say you’ll prevent another episode, but you might be able to minimize the severity and the duration. Honestly, I wish I could give you a better answer. If you were able to know when these bouts were going to happen and we could have you hooked up to some equipment as it happened, that might tell us more. For all we know, you might not have any more episodes anyway.”
Helena and I smiled at each other as we left the hospital. A fair amount of pressure had been removed from my chest now that I knew I wasn’t showing signs of an imminent demise. I felt a bit better about everything, to tell you the truth. Those brief moments with Helena when we were as close as we had once been, man, those moments could lift my spirits through any hardship. My only lingering concern was that I would have to be on constant watch for signs of something happening. I hadn’t noticed much of anything the previous times until it was underway. If I fell into one of those hallucinations again I would have a hell of a time trying to pop a pill. That meant I’d have to ride it out as long as it took, and I knew how well that had worked for me the last time.
“Something on your mind?” Helena asked as we got in the car.
“Just thinking that I don’t know how to anticipate what happens to me. I guess if we’re in the same room you could shove the pills down my throat.”
“And miss you ranting about whatever it is you think you’re seeing?” she smiled. “My life’s not all that exciting. If you start rambling about being on the front lines in the Civil War, I’m going to grab a snack and watch the show.”
“Oh, good,” I laughed. “Your support is overwhelming.”
As we made our drive home, a funny thought occurred to me. When I was younger, I had held a brief fascination with the idea of lucid dreaming. That’s this weird state where the conscious mind exerts itself during dreams. With some practice, a person can choose to “become lucid” and direct the flow of events in the dream. I had some degree of success when I had practiced back in college. I hadn’t done it in a long time. Now, riding in the car, I wondered... could these visions, or hallucinations or whatever they were be anticipated? Could they be controlled? If they were projections of my distorted subconscious, what might I learn about myself by exploring just a little?