Chapter 17
Carrie drove, since she knew the way. This time it was a cardboard file box she had to move to the back seat. The papers back there were getting more precarious.
"Is that your dissertation?"
"Some of it. And student papers."
"You could take over my study. I don't even know what it's for."
"Let's don't jump to conclusions, okay? Don't be a pessimist. Anyway, I have a great space upstairs in the attic."
Dr. Richardson's office was in an old building downtown. When they came in the reception area was deserted, and there was no one at the desk behind the glass. They sat for a minute and then a ginger-haired girl with big hoop earrings and bright red lipstick poked her head around the corner.
"Hi Carrie. Hi Brian. It'll be just a second. She's on the phone."
Brian leaned over to Carrie. "It's so strange to have someone I've never seen before say my name. I guess I'd better get used to it."
Dr. Richardson was a pretty, slender young woman, probably about their age, with straight blond hair tucked behind her ears. She appeared in the doorway and waved them in.
Carrie hesitated. "Do you want me to come with you?"
"Yes, of course. You need to know what's going on as much as I do. Besides, you can answer the questions I can't."
"Let's go to my office," Dr. Richardson said. As they entered the hallway, she put both hands on Carrie's belly and smiled at her. "Looking good," she said. "Everything going all right?"
"Seems to be."
The doctor patted her shoulder and led them to her office.
"Okay, Brian, tell me about yourself."
He laughed a little, embarrassed. "That's what I'm having trouble with. Carrie told you I've lost track of me? Yesterday morning I just suddenly realized I didn't remember anything."
"Was this when you first woke up?"
"No, I was out running on a trail in a park."
"What's the first thing you remember?"
"Looking at the water, trying to figure out where I was."
"How did you get home? Did you have a wallet or something?"
"No, nothing at all. Not a clue. I went to the police, and then a social worker set me up in a motel. And then Carrie tracked me down."
"Have you had any other symptoms, besides the memory loss?"
"No, I feel fine. Just confused and stupid."
"When you say confused, do you mean that you're having trouble thinking clearly?"
"No, my mind seems clear. I just meant the confusion of trying to put all the pieces together." He turned to Carrie. "What do you think? Is the brain working?"
"As far as I can tell."
"Let's see how I can ask this to help me understand. When you say you've forgotten everything, what does that include? Are there any personal memories at all? Childhood? Flashes of remembering?"
"I haven't remembered anything about myself. That seems to be what's missing. There are some automatic things that I seem to remember how to do. Like the code for getting the phone messages." And then he added, "I can get dressed by myself."
"He still knows how to make a good omelet," Carrie said.
The doctor paged through Brian's medical records folder. "How about medications -- anything new?"
Brian shrugged helplessly. He realized he hadn't noticed any prescription bottles in his bathroom medicine cabinet. "I have no idea. Carrie?" Carrie shook her head.
"Of course. I guess you wouldn't know, would you? All I have down here is a daily vitamin and some prophylactic aspirin."
Dr. Richardson made a few notes on a clipboard and got up from her desk. "Let's go check you out." She led them to an examining room and had him sit on the table and take off his shoes.
"When did you get this?" She touched the scar on his eyebrow and peered at it closely. He looked at Carrie for information.
"It was a month or so ago."
"How did it happen?" Brian realized he had stopped wondering about it, hadn't even remembered to ask. It was just one of the features he was getting used to seeing in the mirror.
"Racquet ball," Carrie said.
"Really," he said. "Did I do it to myself?"
"No, it was Andrea. She likes to have meetings on the court. And she likes to win. We decided you were getting too far ahead of her and she had to do something drastic. She claimed she didn't realize you were behind her when she swung." It was obviously a joke between them. He liked that.
"Did he have any symptoms right after the injury? Dizziness? Nausea?"
"No, he just said it hurt like a son of a bitch. It did give him a headache for a few hours."
"Well, it probably doesn't have anything to do with this, but we'll check it out." She tapped with her little hammer, checking his reflexes, and he responded normally. She proceeded to run him through his paces with balance tests, and looked into his eyes with a bright light. She kept running notes on her clipboard as they went.
"Well, I don't see any outward signs of neurological problems. But I'm going to want you to go to the hospital for some testing. I think it can be done on an outpatient basis unless they find something that needs to be looked at further. I'd like you to do that as soon as possible. Okay?" They both nodded. "There could be something going on we don't know about without some pictures of the inside of your head."
"Are you talking about a brain tumor?" He realized that was his biggest fear, another thing he'd been ignoring, besides Katherine Wells.
"There are lots of possibilities. A circulation problem, some slow bleeding from the blow on the head, a brain episode like a little stroke. Some deterioration of brain cells that we wouldn't expect at your age, so don't worry about it. I'm not a neurologist. We'll turn you over to the experts for this. I'm inclined to think it's none of those, but we still have to rule them out."
"And if it's none of those things?"
"Well, then it will be something psychological. There is something called a fugue state. Some experts don't believe it exists, the ones who tend to be narrowly focused on organic causes for everything. It's not very well understood. But we'll get around to that. We'll order a psych consult, if nothing obviously organic shows up. And of course the memory might come back spontaneously."
Back in her office, the doctor called to make arrangements. As luck would have it, there had been a cancellation and the neurology department could take him on Monday. Dr. Richardson handed Brian a checklist with details for the hospital from her notepad. Carrie had an early class on Monday, and she could drive him to the hospital after that. He was supposed to check in at 11:00 in the morning, and he'd probably be there all afternoon, but unless they found something drastic he wouldn't have to stay overnight. It felt like progress.