Brainstorm

by Robert Wintner

  “Just over there.” She points out the door. “You’re parked in the lot? Okay, go out the exit and go left and up the drive a hundred yards and turn right and park in front.”

  “What’s over there?”

  “The hospital. You need to go right over.”

  I think this is it, the moment of seeing. I feel a seed suddenly crack and reach out with germination, but I press to know what these people have planned for me and mine. Why must we go right over there? I am told that everything will be explained over there, and they exchange another glance. I feel squeezed in the rough interface between my right to know and the American Medical Association’s agenda; one is God-given while the other feels unnecessarily embedded in secrecy. I know they don’t mean to be secret but only try to avoid legal recourse on wrong information that may well lead to pain and suffering and other sundry chaos. These nurses sense my discomfort. Their glance seems to ask who in their right mind would resist what is best for them. So I ask again, “Can you please tell me why we need to go right over there to the hospital?”

  “Just have a seat. Have a seat, please.”

  “I think I’ll stand, thanks.” In fact, I think I’ll leave this waiting room, because it feels more suitable to relatives who are more willing than I am to surrender the decision-making process. I think I’ll proceed to the source to see what’s up and get a straightforward answer to a straightforward question. The radiology tech seems service oriented, so I simply ask, “What do you have?”

  “I’m only a tech,” she says. “Doctor wants to see you. He’ll be out in a few minutes. Sit down, please.” I don’t mean to be so easily irritated, but this dropping of the article feels wrong, intimating that Doctor is like God, and there is only One. She too senses my trouble and shares my fidget.

  “Don’t you mean the doctor?” I ask.

  “What?” she asks back.

  I want free of this onrush of anxiety and what feels like a house of mirrors. Who wouldn’t? Rachel is in the CAT scan room, getting dressed. And just that quickly, I’m out of patience. “Punch it up. Now, please. Chop chop. Let’s go.”

  I step forward with reasonable concern, and she complies, perhaps unsettled by lack of proper authority but willing to go along with a verbal disclaimer. She mumbles, “I’m only a tech,” and elaborates on the inconsequential essence of anything she might say. She reminds me that Doctor must say it, if it’s to mean anything. The monitor brightens with brain scans as a fellow in his mid-twenties comes out a door down the hall and strides this way. He introduces himself a few paces out, but I can’t hear him. The left half of the monitor in front of us is pre-empted by a white mass. I am past the moment of germination in another moment of dramatic growth; the moments divide and grow with sudden acceleration. They pile on with knowing. I am reminded of the old days of lift-off, when I lay back on the sofa gripping the cushions to either side through the G-forces of the LSD experience, so I wouldn’t roll off. Just hang on, I told myself. Soon you’ll level at altitude. Then you can maneuver, but don’t try it just yet, because turns and banks under a load like this can rip your wings off. The little mosquito from last night enlarges like a hallucination. With a growing wingspan and teeth to match, it swoops. This is alternate reality.

  I turn to Doctor as he says, “… massive cerebral hemorrhage in the left temporal lobe . . .”

  “I feel fine,” she says, standing by me now.

  “We think this occurred today,” Doctor says.

  “I’m sure it was yesterday.” I don’t mean to correct him, because I’m acutely aware of my impression on others.

  “Or yesterday,” he allows.

  “Or maybe a long time ago,” I venture.

  “No. See the brightness. That means it’s fresh.”

  “You mean the blood?”

  He nods.

  “When the blood ages, it darkens?”

  “Yes. It darkens quickly.”

  “Like life,” I say, at once regretting my outlook and acceptance of the dark spirit. I feel its presence, a tangible solidification in the company we share. Call me superstitious or spiritually aware. I recognize an ethereal population, an air around us jostling with lost and partial souls. Do you think it doesn’t exist? I think this place is closed to the world of wonder but dense with forlorn spirits. I think this is a place of double-blind faith; the medical staff apparently senses our discomfort. They stand by to see what we’ll do.

  Well, we stare at the monitor as if the bartender will surf to another game and we can have another beer. I’ve known about dark entities for years, which doesn’t make me extrasensory; some people are attuned to the ether; some are not. The dark forms avoid delineation, usually by favoring peripheral movement. They disappear when you turn to them straight on, because they’re not of this world, not of the flesh. Perhaps they’re as queasy as we are in the act of recognition. That’s what Rachel saw. Now I sense their proximity. I wonder why and whom and how many. Are they jacked-up and hungry for some innocence? I turn to her. I smile, maybe because she doesn’t disappear. “Do you still see them?”

  “See what?”

  “The peripheral movements.”

  “Maybe a little bit. But I’m fine. I’m telling you I feel fine. I am fine.”

  I turn to Doctor, perhaps hoping he’ll disappear.

  “We need you to go right over to the hospital. Take these with you.” He hands us the film negatives. “They’re expecting you.”

  “What will they want to do?”

  “I can’t say. I can only guess.” He hesitates, seemingly aware of his professional dark entity, Liability.

  “What would you guess?”

  “My guess is that they’ll want to medivac Rachel to Seattle. She has a very dangerous condition.”

  “In a helicopter?”

  He nods grimly.

  “That’s ridiculous. I feel fine. We’re going over there anyway. Come on.” She grabs the film negatives and is on her way to Seattle. She moves sprightly now on quick, short steps like a woman insulted, or maybe a woman who knows her rights. I hurry to catch up. “What a crock.”

  “I’ll say.”

  She has a ferry schedule in her purse. “Oh, shit. Now we missed the three-ten.”

  “Oh, well. We have to drop these off anyway. When’s the next one?”

  “Not till four-thirty!”

  “Plenty of time.”

  “This is so frustrating. We should be over there right now!”

  “We’ll go late. What’s the rush?”

  “Oh. You were looking forward to this.”

  “Still am,” I assure her, lying with unnatural aplomb.

  “Let’s just go. We’ll drop these off on Friday.”

  I shake my head. “Then I’ll have to drive all the way back down. Besides, it’s a courtesy.” She shakes her head, and before you know it, I’ve achieved passive manipulation once again as we reach door number three. It opens onto rural bedlam, a hospital emergency room in a military/farm/OK-Used-Cars town.

  This is more like it, with a staff more attuned to punctuality, and we don’t have to wait at all. In fact, they’re expecting us. They whisk us to the inner sanctum, dispensing with the waiting room and its teeming injured yearning to be free. I doubt anyone here has severe cerebral hemorrhage, yet here they sit, when they could be savoring corned beef and cabbage with the best beer in the world. Oh, boy, the choices some people make.

  Doctor could have been a fraternity brother of Doctor, I think. He spares us further knee taps and questions, except for having Rachel squeeze his fingers and tell him what month it is, what day of that month and who is President of the United States of America. Rachel squints as if into the mystical realm and tells him March 17th and the year of record and the full given name of the President of the United States of America. He looks puzzled by her apparent sarcasm but lets it pass as he slumps in resignation or bedside manner. Yes, he can sense our view of the process and apprecieate our little joke, but th
is is not the time for humor. Low and mellifluous he says, “Tell me what happened.”

  “Well, I was painting this bookcase we have—”

  “You mean staining.” I only correct her to establish a record.

  “Staining. And the door was broken last week and all these people, I think three of them, came to the house right in a row. And I had to drop everything and run out and open the door and then close it—”

  “You mean the gate.”

  “The gate. And then I had to close it so the dogs wouldn’t get out. And the smoke from the paint—”

  “You mean the fumes. Rachel. He needs to know what happened with your head.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. Let me finish. So the smoke was really, you know, making me all dis . . . dis . . .”

  “Oriented.”

  “Yes. And I got this splitting headache. And I never take aspirin. So I took two buttons and then I felt easy but I had to go . . . And now I see these dots . . . These . . . See?” She reaches to the side without looking there.

  Doctor leans in with gentle certainty. His anxiety underscores my own. As if deferring on cue to the dark spirits whose presence is now official, Rachel has dropped again into wrong words, the first since waking up this morning. The young doctor seems capable enough, except for his visible anxiety over what could be his first drop-dead interview. He grasps her forearm and nods, perhaps hoping we’ll nod too. “Have you ever been on a helicopter?” He smiles, maybe hoping we’ll share his enthusiasm for the terrific fun ride in our near future.

  “Sure,” Rachel says. “We used to live in Hawaii. I’ve been up plenty. I’ve been over Haleakala—the tornado—and around the backside to Hana. I hate those things.”

  He smiles. “I want you to take a helicopter ride.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve had a massive cerebral hemorrhage. I . . .” He laughs short. “I gotta tell you. Nobody here has ever seen anything like this. Why aren’t you in a coma?”

  “Why can’t you relax?” she asks back. “I feel fine. We’re not going for a helicopter ride.”

  “We don’t want him to go,” Doctor says.

  “Don’t want me to go?”

  “You can take the ferry or drive around. No family or friends can go in the helicopter.”

  “Oh, you’re dreaming.” She says it, not me; yet I understand her resistance to the offer. “You think I’m locking up with you guys with no protection?”

  “What’s the rush?” I ask.

  “You’re wife is . . . Well, she’s at extreme risk. She could drop dead any second. A sneeze could kill her!”

  I find myself nodding, not so much with new realization but with a hammering in of the old.

  “That’s ridiculous. I feel fine. We have maps. It’s four o’clock, and we haven’t had anything to eat.”

  “You just . . . can’t . . .” Doctor is very flustered.

  “Please. Doctor, can you give us a couple minutes?”

  “All right.” He sits there.

  “Alone.”

  “Oh.”

  He leaves. Rachel babbles that she is not, repeat not, at extreme risk, because she feels fine. If she didn’t feel fine, that would be another movie, meaning story, but she suspects the helicopter concession here thrives on customers in coma, who cannot resist. We can take these scratch scan film thingies to wherever they need to go tomorrow. We’ll have plenty of time then and a fresh start on a brand new day. In the meantime, she feels fine.

  I watch. I listen. And just like that I am holding my face in two hands and sobbing. She steps up and cradles my head, she with the massive cerebral hemorrhage. “Jesus. You’re ploving a snit. I’m the one with the headache.”

  “Look . . .” I struggle to collect myself. “You’re going to have to help me out on this. I know how you feel about what kinds of things go on here. But I can’t do this alone.”

  “Do what alone? We’re not doing anything.”

  “I agree. No helicopter. We’ll catch the ferry and drop these off at the hospital.”

  “That’s what you said before. We’re at the hospital. So why go to another hospital? There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “Rachel. You’ve had a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Don’t you get it?”

  “I feel fine.”

  “I know you do. And I’m proud of you. But we must go to the next step. You’re dropping words. Are you aware of that?”

  She hangs her head. “This is so bad.” Then she rubs her left temple.

  “Yes. And it may get worse. In the meantime, please move slowly and talk softly. I can’t . . . I can’t do this alone.”

  She hugs me again. “Okay. Can we leave now?”

  I nod and we exit the inner sanctum. We hail Doctor and tell him our plan. He offers a few short gasps of disbelief and shakes his head and says to wait here. I tell him with cold certainty that we have no time to spare, so we will be on our way in one minute. He nods. He steps back and behind the front desk, then back again. Without moving his left foot, he seems disturbingly similar to Curly Joe. He has a clipboard with consent forms. He wants us to sign off.

  “You’re confused,” I tell him. ‘We’re not taking the helicopter.”

  “I know. This just says that you understand your wife is at extreme risk and may die on the way over. She may die on the ferry. She may have a stroke that will leave her without speech. But it might not effect her cognizance, so she’ll know she’s impaired with no hope of recovery.”

  “How can you ask us to consent to something we’re not doing? You make this feel like a Kafka story. Do you know Kafka? He was a doctor too, and he wrote stories like this one.”

  “I haven’t read him, but I know who you mean. Please, this is my career on the line. I can’t let you go without . . . I mean; you have nothing to lose here. I mean . . . You know what I mean.” He’s nearly as unsettled as I am, and he adequately conveys his heartfelt need in troublesome times. We both sense death perched on the rafters ready to pounce. The reassembly of a shattered life would follow for both of us by way of deep, personal loss and the investigation that would surely begin. How could this have happened with rational people on hand?

  She died on the ferry? But she was in the Bremerton ER! You let her walk out?

  “I do know what you mean. You want to save your ass even though we’re not willing to save ours.” He offers the tight-lipped smile in difficult agreement. “Let me ask you something else, though. Don’t you worry about pressure changes?”

  “Pressure changes? She’s already bled. The pressure won’t change again unless she bleeds again.” He jots something down, perhaps noting that I too display symptoms of confusion and speech pathology. Then again, my floating doubt is out of the hole at planing speed, and with momentum comes paranoia. Maybe he only jotted an innocent reminder to get the milk, bread and eggs on the way home.

  “Pressure changes at altitude.”

  He glares at me and suddenly sees. “Oh! Well, no, not really. It doesn’t work that way. For one thing, they don’t go very high at all.”

  “Do they go higher than sixty feet? You know it’s easy going up, but rough coming down.”

  He puffs in exasperation. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she’s not embolized. And you have no air pockets in your head so the pressure is already equal. A hemorrhage doesn’t emit air of any kind into the space, and liquid cannot change volume, which is what you’re suggesting.”

  “What about the Eustachian tubes that run up to the inner ear? Can you feel them on descent? And how do you know she’s not embolized?” Embolism is the blocking of a blood vessel that causes everything on the pressure side of the block to swell. It results from aberrant flow or off-gassing with no decompression following a deep dive, which is another example of dramatic pressure change. Embolism occurs in a weak system or a combination of the above conditions. Eustachian tubes do conduct air and constrict under p
ressure, which you feel on descent of any flight. You get relief from dilation, which can be effected with a nose blow or a sneeze or a yawn, none of which seem sympathetic to a cerebral hemorrhage. Certified divers and snorkel executives are sensitive to ambient pressure, below the surface or above.

  Doctor wants to present his side of the story but hardly has time because we just don’t get it, and we may have a death here momentarily, and he’s very busy with people who want his help, so please . . . He slides the consent form and pen toward me, and I sign. Because we all need to move along. This isn’t the first or last thing he or I wouldn’t agree on. It doesn’t matter. He half nods and offers the pen to Rachel. She signs as well and says it’s time to go. He wishes us luck, like a cashier at Vegas, and he’s off to the more receptive.

  We’re out the door, in the car and on our way, but we’re not exactly sure how to get there. The dogs whine. Molly has to pee. Oh, yeah, we have Molly and Dino with us, because they can’t spend the night alone, because Molly has to pee. And if we have too much fun and can’t manage the long trek home, we can camp in town at my office on the ninth floor. I’m a distributor of masks, fins and snorkels, who would much rather be researching a distant reef with my assistant. But the clouds roll in.

  I turn the key and the dashboard bongs and flashes, signaling Time for Service! I press a few buttons to make it stop but to no avail. I want to kick the dashboard but can’t get my foot in place, but in a minute it stops. Rachel tells the dogs to hold it; we have to make the ferry. She explains to them that we’ll most likely have a few minutes wait in the holding area, and then we can all take a leak. Molly licks her excitedly.

  But I can’t find the Bremerton Ferry, and it takes an hour and twenty minutes to cross anyway. So we scratch that plan for a ride up to Bainbridge, which takes thirty minutes to drive, but then that ferry is only forty-five minutes in crossing Puget Sound, and besides, we can stop at Central Market on the way for some sushi—her idea. She seems out of touch, rising in my esteem in the face of extreme risk. She’s hungry. She wants sushi. She will eat. What a woman.

  I beg her to wait in the car, but no. She’ll let the dogs pee then shag the beer while I get in line with the sushi. “Beer? You want beer?”