Forty Scrubs

by Joanna George

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Sitting by Sam’s side was becoming a daily custom. She had been in the coma for almost a week now. I didn’t think I could handle it anymore. I hadn’t been to school for days. Dougall was calling and leaving messages but I didn’t speak to him. He even came to see me, and I watched from my bedroom window.

  ‘Is Keisha alright, Mr Morgan? She hasn’t been at school for almost two weeks and I’m worried about her. She won’t return any of my calls,’ he said to Dad.

  ‘Please call me Tony, Dougall. Keisha is going through a rough patch at the moment. Her sister is in hospital and she’s had some things to deal with herself, but she should be better soon. I’m sure you can expect to see her back at school next week.’

  ‘Can you please give her my best regards. I really hate to see her sick, Mr – er, Tony. She’s my best friend and I need her to come back.’

  ‘Of course I’ll do that for you, Dougall. You take care, okay.’

  I watched Dougall walk away.

  His head was down and his hands were in his pockets.

  He was a nerd.

  He was my sweet little nerd though.

  Dad was trying hard with me and Jessica was kinder than usual, but I needed Sam. She was my best friend and I needed her to come back to me. No-one could ever replace her.

  No-one stayed up at night with me to alphabetise my books like she did.

  No-one helped me put everything in my room so it was symmetrical like she did.

  No-one smiled at me when I wiped my knife and fork with a serviette in a restaurant the way she did.

  I liked going to the hospital by myself so I could talk to her. I didn’t tell her I wasn’t going to school in case she could hear me. I usually told her about the books I was reading and what the others were doing at home.

  My obsessions had become worse. If I wasn’t thinking about her I was thinking about how many times I needed to wash my hands before I ate.

  I remembered a time when I was younger asking Dad why he worked in a bar and not an office.

  He said, ‘because office desks have four-hundred times more germs than your average toilet does.’

  I thought about it and wondered how it could’ve been true. Then it dawned on me that maybe he was right.

  Take your average dirty person. That person goes to the toilet, does number twos and manages to get some excrement lodged in his or her nails (I was being gender non-discriminating), walks out of the toilet and doesn’t wash his or her hands. The person goes back to his or her desk and while biting the fingernails on one hand he or she is tapping his or her fingers on the desk with the other. The excrement falls onto the desk, smudges and stays there.

  Another worker comes along, sits at the desk and puts his hands on the smudge. He or she might have a job as a chef after work. The worker doesn’t wash his or her hands before he or she handles food and so the excrement gets onto someone’s plate and into their digestive tract, and so the process continues.

  Thank God for my rigorous hand-washing ritual.

  When I left Sam each day I always ended my solo conversations with, ‘I love you so much, Sam, and I need you to come home because – ‘. I had a different reason every night. One day I said ‘because I miss your smile’. Another time I said, ‘because you are my best friend.’ The last time I saw her I said, ‘because I carry your heart. I carry it in my heart’. That was my favourite line from my favourite poem, I Carry your Heart with me, by EE Cummings.

  Every day I thought of something new to say because I was so scared something could happen to her.

  We were sitting down for dinner one night. Jessica said, ‘Dougall has been coming around, Keish. When are you going to see him?’

  ‘When I’m ready to, but I’m not at the moment. Besides, I’ll be back at school soon so I’ll see him then.’

  I didn’t even need to look at Dad to know what his reaction would be.

  ‘I spoke to him the other day too. He’s a nice boy, Keish. You shouldn’t be keeping your distance from him like this. You need a friend right now. You’re always in your room unless you’re coming down for meals, and that’s not often.’

  What did he want me to do?

  Give Dougall my Ken doll?

  Take out my Barbies and play happy families with him?

  ‘I’m alright, Dad. I have what I need. I don’t need anyone to talk to. I’m perfectly okay.’

  Jessica gave me a long lingering look. ‘Are you punishing yourself because you think you are to blame for Sam being in a coma?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Jessi. I’m not punishing myself. I just don’t feel like dealing with anyone at the moment. Can we please just drop it?’

  ‘It is that, isn’t it, Keisha? You do think you’re to blame, don’t you?’ she asked, ignoring my request and acting like I’d said nothing at all.

  Jessica really was deviating from her usual languid stiff zone.

  She had me worried.

  We didn’t need a shrink in the family.

  We had enough with me needing to be shrinked.

  ‘Jessi, don’t worry about it, please. Can we just forget it?’

  ‘No, we can’t. I need to know.’

  ‘Okay, I do think it’s partly my fault because I went to see Stan. We wouldn’t have had all this if I didn’t go. Sam would be sitting at the table with us now.’

  ‘That may be so, but you wouldn’t have known the true Stan and we would never have found out about Alex either. Don’t worry, she’ll come round from the coma, you’ll see.’

  I hated that.

  Jessica and Dad in denial.

  If Sam was lucky enough to pull out of it she would probably end up with memory loss or paralysis. It was my fault.

  ‘Why are you and Dad always so optimistic about everything? There’s no guarantee Sam will come round,’ I said.

  Dad had tears in his eyes. ‘Please don’t say that, Keisha. There is every chance she’ll come out of it fine, and I have to believe that. It’s what’s getting me through this.’

  I wish I had the same capacity to be optimistic like they did.

  My mind was a china shop.

  My thoughts were a ball in that shop.

  They roamed around and played havoc with everything in sight.

  Dad’s mind was a bandaid he thought he could use to cover up wounds.

  The next day when Dougall came to the house Dad told him to come up to my room. My room was prepared but my mind wasn’t.

  ‘Hi Dougall, how are you?’ I said, opening the door to him.

  ‘I’m good thanks, but more importantly, how are you? I’ve been trying to call you, Keish, but you haven’t called back.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I’ve just been under a lot of pressure with things lately, you know.’

  Poor Dougall.

  He was looking plainer than usual.

  He could have auditioned to be Dobby’s understudy in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, if he shaved his greasy hair off that is.

  ‘I’ve been really worried, Keisha. What’s been going on?’ he asked.

  ‘What’s Dad told you?’

  ‘Nothing, he thinks you should tell me.’

  I sat down on my bed and patted the space next to me.

  ‘It’s one hell of a story. You sure you want to know?’

  ‘Keisha, you’re my best friend. Of course I want to know. I want to know so I can help you,’ he said sitting down slowly.

  Everything he did was awkward and slow.

  Poor Dougall was awkward right through his very core.

  I told him the whole story from when I found out Sam was my biological mother to her trying to commit suicide. He was really upset about her being in a coma.

  ‘I just can’t believe it, Keisha. Why would your sis – sorry, Sam, want to take her own life? She has so much going for her, you know. She must’ve been really upset.’

  He looked at the floor a
nd put his hands in his pockets. ‘Wow, it’s an amazing story, and just so hard to believe.’

  ‘I am telling you the truth. I wouldn’t lie to you, and why do you think I’ve been off school all this time?’

  He threw me a look of shock. ‘Oh no, I wasn’t doubting you, Keisha. I’d never do that because I know you’re always so honest. It’s just so totally bizarre, like something you see on a film.’

  If only it were all a film.

  ‘So, what do you think is going to happen to Sam? Do you think she’ll be okay?’ he asked.

  ‘I hope so. I keep willing her along and when I go there alone I talk to her.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s a good idea. I’m sure if anyone can shake her out of the coma you can. You two are really close, almost like you’re identical twins or something.’

  I wanted to tell him to stop talking about Sam. It was hard enough having her always consume my thoughts but it was even harder to listen to someone outside my mind talk about her. It made it all seem too real. I couldn’t tell myself I was only dreaming because here was Dougall trying to wake me up and find me.

  ‘Are you okay, Keish? You seem to have gone off to another planet or something.’

  ‘Oh yeah, sorry. I was just thinking about Sam.’

  He smiled awkwardly.

  At least he knew there was a possibility she might not make it.

  At least he didn’t live in the world of denial with Jessica and Dad.

  Then he looked down at his hands and said, ‘can I ask you something, Keisha?’

  ‘Sure, go ahead.’

  ‘I – um, I wondered how all this is affecting your head and all. Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m okay, I guess. There’s no need to go calling the men in white suits to come and take me away just yet,’ and I laughed before saying, ‘there is something I’m a bit worried about though.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s a bit difficult to talk about, and if I tell you, will you promise not to tell anyone else?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Not even my dad or Jessi or Alex?’

  ‘No, of course I won’t. Why? What is it, Keish?’

  Something had happened I couldn’t share with anyone.

  Something had entered my mind I had absolutely no control over.

  It was something I had never dreamed of doing in my life before.

  And I told him. ‘I – I was sitting by Sam’s bed one day. Actually it was a couple of days ago, and all of a sudden I had this awful evil thought come into my mind.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, Sam has a drip attached to the back of her hand. She used to be on a heart monitor but she doesn’t have that any more. Anyway, I was sitting there all by myself falling asleep, when suddenly I thought about taking the drip’s needle out of her hand to stab her with it. This thought just festered and however much I tried I couldn’t get rid of it. It just went on and on. In the end I was so scared I’d do it I left the hospital in a panic. I was sweating and everything.’

  ‘Wow, that’s kind of scary, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but I haven’t had really bad thoughts like that, not when they’ve really tried to take over. I think it’s all the stress and everything. My body is just experiencing overload at the moment, including my brain. It’s called something like overvalued ideation, I think. I hope that’s all it is.’

  ‘Yeah, I read something about it. It doesn’t mean you’d ever do it though.’

  Dougall had been investigating my problems for me.

  ‘I know, but I worry every time I go and see her now. I’ve even thought maybe I shouldn’t visit her.’

  But then I wouldn’t have been able to give her my reason every day why I wanted her back. I didn’t tell Dougall the extremity of my situation, my catch twenty-two. I tried so hard not to even think about it in hope it would disappear. I didn’t even talk to my mind about it because I needed the thoughts to vanish or at least to go down to that dusty crevice where they wouldn’t re-surface for a long time.

  My thoughts seemed so real yet in reality it was impossible for them even to be legitimate. I envisioned myself being taken away from Sam by the men in white suits after I had stabbed her so many times with the needle.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ I would say flinging my arms around, while the men tried to stick a needle in my bottom.

  ‘Come on now,’ one man would say, struggling to pull the top of my pants down so he could inject me. ‘If it wasn’t you who was it?’

  ‘It was my mind. It kept on telling me to do it.’

  The man would take one look at me, shake his head and say, ‘yes, I’m sure it did, and that’s why we’re taking you away. You’re one crazy chick.’

  I would be carried out of the hospital doped up to the eyeballs and muttering, ‘it wasn’t me. It was my mind.’

  I really did need help.

  ‘I’ve actually been doing a little research on the topic and came across something called Cognitive Therapy. It might help you,’ Dougall said as I was trying hard to plummet back down to reality.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve heard about it myself. I think Sam talked to me about it the day I found out she was my mum. It’s something called The Four Steps. We haven’t talked about treatment since. I’ve been to so many therapists and psychiatrists though, Doug, I don’t think I could handle anymore. To tell you the truth, I don’t think there is anyone who can do a single thing for me.’

  He looked at me.

  He really did look like Dobby now.

  A long nose, gaping mouth and huge eyes brimming with anticipation.

  ‘Keish, you shouldn’t say that until you try it. You can’t say something doesn’t work unless you’ve done it. Okay, you might’ve been to heaps of shrinks but I bet none of them have actually ever gone to the trouble of doing this cognitive therapy thing with you, have they?’

  No, most shrinks told me to forget about the thoughts running through my mind. That was like telling Dougall to forget about all his chemical combinations.

  ‘What does this cognitive therapy involve anyway?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, there are a few steps to it. I’m not sure of the order exactly but I know it’s kind of based on the Greek philosophy that “nothing in life is actually bad lest we perceive it to be so”. You are taught to get rid of the anxious thoughts in your brain by repeating what makes you panic. If you have thoughts like you’re having about Sam, you say to yourself something like, “come on, I am going to stab Sam with the needle” over and over again until your brain somehow gets sick of it. Then you keep on saying to yourself that the thoughts you’re having are irrational. See what I mean.’

  Dougall was quite an intelligent and resourceful boy.

  Or just very compassionate.

  ‘But I can’t go and do that, Dougall. It sounds like everything else I’ve been through already. It just wouldn’t work.’

  ‘Like I said, you won’t know until you try, and don’t say you’ve done it before because you’ve never been to one shrink for long enough. It’s a long process, you know, and you can’t be impatient. It’s not something that’ll happen over night.’

  There was a knock at my door.

  ‘Keisha, are you okay? Did you two want anything to eat or drink?’

  ‘No, Jessi,’ I call back, ‘we’re fine, but thanks anyway.’

  ‘Alright. Just come down when you’re hungry.’

  I turned back to face Dougall.

  ‘But I really can’t see how it’ll work. It’s some kind of chemical imbalance. How can something therapeutic change my brain? I need substances to do that.’

  ‘How long have you been on that drug for now? I’m sorry, Keish, but it hasn’t cured you, has it?’

  ‘It’s Zoloft and I’ve been on it for a long time. It does help me, but I don’t think anything will ever cure me. I’m stuck with it and I’ll die with it.’

  ‘Yeah, th
at may be the case, but with this cognitive therapy you’ll learn how to manage it properly. Don’t you just want to give it a try? Come on, Keish, it really might help you.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’

  ‘Come on. Tell you what, how about you give it just a couple of sessions and if you really don’t like it or if you really don’t see it working, you can give it up? But at least give it a go. I never knew you to be a quitter, Miss Morgan.’

  Dougall the nerd was becoming Dougall the persuader.

  Funny boy, he really must have cared about me.

  ‘Well, maybe,’ I said, ‘but please let me think about it.’

  ‘Okay, but if you don’t do it for yourself, do it for Sam. I’m sure she’d want you to. She’s been trying to get you along to more shrinks for ages, hasn’t she?’

  He really knew how to win me over.

  I was sure he was clambering to the title, Dougall the Crusader.

  He would be forcing me to call him Julius Caesar before long.

  ‘Okay, I guess you’re right. I suppose it’s the least I can do for her. Maybe I’ll even be a bit better for her when she comes out of the coma.’

  Look who was becoming the optimist now.

  He smiled and gave me an awkward hug.

  ‘Oh, Keisha, I’m so proud of you. I’m really pleased you’re going to do it. You wait and see. It’ll really help you, I can see it now.’

  ‘Whoa, Dougall, don’t get your hopes up too fast. I said I was going to give it a couple of trials to see if I like it or not. I didn’t say I was going to complete the whole thing.’

  ‘Okay, okay. I know what you’re saying. I’m just proud of you, Keish.’

  He took his arms away from me slowly and looked at the floor.

  ‘What is it now, Dougall?’

  He paused and said, ‘how can read me so well?’

  ‘I’ve known you for years. I know all your little quirks and habits. So tell me what’s wrong.’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong really. I just wondered when you’re coming back to school. People have been asking about you.’

  That was unlikely.

  The kids wouldn’t have even noticed if I was captured by aliens coming out of a humongous spaceship right in front of their very eyes.

  I would be lucky if the teachers noticed me.

  ‘I’m sure they haven’t, Dougall. Don’t lie to me. The other kids would be glad to be rid of me.’

  ‘No, it’s true. They’ve been asking me what’s wrong with you.’

  ‘And who exactly is “they”?’

  ‘Oh, you know, the usual kids.’

  There weren’t any ‘usual kids’.

  It was just me and him.

  ‘What usual kids? I don’t remember anyone really noticing whether I was at school or not.’

  ‘Well, all the teachers have asked me.’

  ‘Come on, Dougall. Only the teachers have asked, haven’t they? None of the kids would even know I’ve been away.’

  ‘No, Keisha.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Dougall. You know how much I hate lying.’

  He gave me a sappy Dobby smile and changed the subject.

  ‘So when are you coming back to school?’

  ‘I’ll probably come back next week when I’ve sorted out what I’m going to do about this therapy, the specialist I’m going to see, that sort of thing.’

  ‘That’s great. I can’t wait for you to come back.’

  That night I searched the internet for sites on Cognitive Therapy. CT seemed to be a kind of thinking and behavioural approach towards treating my type of problems. My designated therapist would need to form a rapport with me and encourage me to treat myself. I knew it was going to be hard.

  I wouldn’t be allowed to give into my fears. I would need to identify them and own them.

  And there were my thoughts to work on. My thoughts were worrying me in the extreme but what I needed to do was focus on removing my guilt about hurting Sam. It was my unconscious mind that produced this unreasonable thought, and my mind worrying about it and becoming over-anxious.

  I discovered I probably had an overly sensitized amygdala. This is the part of the brain responsible for preparing us for emergencies. My amygdala was definitely more active than it should’ve been. It needed deactivating.

  I should have been a computer game, a deep voice saying, ‘your amygdala is deactivated. You will experience some numbness but you will be in control of your thoughts. You can press ‘A’ to re-activate your amygdala but it will be ‘Game Over’.

  I needed to develop a confidence in myself so I could take the risks. It wasn’t going to be easy but I needed to do it for Sam’s sake.

  *****