A nurse calls my name from the waiting list. My right leg is completely numb. Claude has to help me out of my chair. I shakily tell her my symptoms, even though she can plainly see what is wrong:
1) Leg drags behind me
2) Hand cannot lift a cup to my lips
3) Eyes won’t look at the same thing at the same time
While recounting these problems I begin to cry and cannot stop, even after she cradles me for a second, after she lifts me onto a bed to wait for the doctor. This isn’t supposed to be happening, I think. I’ve only been in California for two months. Right now I’m supposed to be at my first day of work, as a reporter for a local paper, my first job out of college. For the interview I’d bought a form-fitting striped pantsuit and crocodile stilettos. On the way to the interview I’d stopped for a latte and a business magazine and felt smart and adult. My answers had come out of my mouth like someone had pressed a button. The editor had sports analogies for me. He wanted a reporter who would hit home runs and catch fly balls with the sun shining in their eyes. I said I could. I’d spent a hundred dollars on makeup and learned how to apply it on a department store stool and it had obviously been worth it.
Obviously.
The doctor starts giving me reflex tests, tapping my knees with a little hammer. I can see that my right side is not reacting as it should. He tells the nurse to order an MRI. I tell myself I will soon be out of this emergency room and on my way to work. After all, it is a sunny Monday in California. Nothing bad can happen here, the weather is too good, the people, too rich.