Thinking he was heading down a path of nonsense, I lashed out. “I don’t have sugar seizures or whatever it is you’re talking about,” I snapped.
The neurologist, a kindly and gentle-looking man, was taken aback by my vehemence. “That’s not why I’m asking. I’m wondering if you’ve been tested for reactive hypoglycemia.”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“That means after you eat something sweet, your blood sugar rises and crashes quickly. That can serve as a seizure trigger.”
I was about to argue, but he interrupted. “I’m not saying you have seizures from sugar. A sugar crash can be like stress or lack of sleep. It can lead to a seizure in someone with epilepsy. Since you’re still having seizures, we should run a test to see if there are any sugar problems.”
No way. “Contact Dr. Naarden. I’m not doing anything without his approval.”
* * *
—
Haase called the next day.
“I don’t know how you’re still standing,” he said. He explained that Mysoline breaks down into phenobarbital. The blood tests showed my levels of that drug had hit seventy-two milligrams per milliliter.
“Is that high?”
“Like I said, I don’t know how you’re still standing. The upper therapeutic range tends to be around forty.”
I thought for a second—I had been wobbly, short of breath. I had fallen over once, but I had ignored it. That made me angry at myself. I knew my Mysoline dosage had been increased, and amid all the school-related commotion afterward, I never bothered to have my blood levels checked as Naarden recommended. Haase told me he had already informed Naarden. I thanked him and called Dallas.
Naarden instructed me to reduce my Mysoline and added that I probably would not feel well as the levels dropped. Then he mentioned Haase’s suggestion about a glucose tolerance test.
He expressed skepticism about my having reactive hypoglycemia. “Lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place,” he said.
Still, he said, he didn’t know everything. We discussed the test. I insisted that he review the results.
* * *
—
The phone rang in the hallway as I assembled my stereo in my room. Someone let me know the call was for me. On the line was my high school girlfriend, Mari Cossaboom; we had remained close even after our breakup years before.
“Kurt!” she exclaimed. “Your story is in The Dallas Morning News!”
I panicked. “About me and Swarthmore?”
“No, about Balaban!”
My heart raced. I had been taking calls to answer questions from Hoppe, the Morning News reporter who had accepted documents and memos about Balaban. But I had feared the story was going nowhere despite the mountain of evidence I had uncovered.
“Read it to me!” I shouted.
“Okay. The headline is ‘Ailing Doctor Fights for Job.’ ”
“Nice!”
My excitement grew as Mari recited the first paragraph.
In the four years Dr. Donald Balaban has suffered from multiple sclerosis, he has battled the bureaucracy three times to keep his job at the Dallas County Health Department. Now, he is paid $1,200 a month to do nothing.
As she kept reading, I slapped the wall in delight at certain words and phrases. “Harassed,” “threatened,” “intimidation,” “barren office,” “growing mold,” “caged paddy wagon,” “struggle,” “uncontroverted evidence.”
I wanted to cry. Justice won again.
I thanked Mari and phoned Balaban. He told me fifty people had formed a group to fight for him because of the article. In a series of calls, I told members of AID that they needed to call local television stations and even national media organizations such as the Associated Press and United Press International. Then, as the story spread, they should pressure the county commissioners to hold hearings.
AID held a meeting to discuss strategy, and afterward, a director called me. They loved the plan, but no one in the group believed they could handle it. They asked if I would do the job from Swarthmore.
I leaned against the wall and thought. Classes, Sixteen Feet, rehearsals for Pippin, hanging out with friends, seizures. I didn’t have the time. I just didn’t.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
* * *
—
Two days later, time opened up: I was asked to leave Sixteen Feet. I’d performed poorly at a recent rehearsal, probably because my drug levels had been soaring. Now another member of the group and Carl were in our dorm room, telling me I needed to go.
The other member spoke. “What if we’re singing in Philadelphia, and you have a seizure during the performance—” he started.
I exploded in anger before he finished. Carl and Franz, who sat nearby, shouted in unison for the other singer to shut up. That was not the issue at all, Carl said. He asked everyone else to leave the room so he could talk to me alone.
He spoke in a quiet, supportive tone. “You’re putting too much pressure on yourself, and you might hurt a lot of other people because of it. You’re doing Pippin, you’ve got classes, you’ve got Sixteen Feet. You know stress causes seizures, and you’re setting yourself up for more.”
If that happened, everything could fall apart. “Sixteen Feet might die,” he said. “You won’t be able to direct the musical. You might flunk out. Stop trying to prove you’re invincible. If you’re not going to think about yourself, think about everybody who’s going to be hurt if you load yourself up with too much responsibility.”
I took in his words. Carl was speaking from the heart, expressing a pragmatism based on his knowledge of my health. Even though the conversation was about my leaving the group, the tension between us was gone, at least at that moment. He was talking to me as a friend, one with a greater sense of reality than I had. He was right. I was still being self-centered.
“Okay,” I replied. “I’ll drop out of the group.”
“It’s just time off,” Carl said. He looked pained. “I feel really bad about this.”
“Don’t,” I said. “You’re right. I was being selfish. I wanted everything. I can’t do that anymore.”
Carl thanked me. “You’ll be back.”
* * *
—
Within four days of the Morning News article, I persuaded Dallas’s ABC affiliate to broadcast a piece about Balaban and convinced a UPI reporter to write an article.
Later, my mother called with news. After the UPI report appeared, Balaban’s story had been picked up by CNN. I decided the time had come to start pressuring the Dallas county commissioners. I phoned one, Nancy Judy, and left a message. On my second attempt, I reached her colleague Jim Jackson. I explained that I was calling about the Balaban story in the Morning News.
He chuckled. “You can’t believe everything you read.”
“Usually that’s true, but not this time,” I replied. “I reported that story. I gave my information to Christy Hoppe.”
A second passed before he replied. “Who do you work for?”
I’m a nobody college student.
“Who I work for is irrelevant,” I said. “I’m a reporter from Dallas who now lives on the East Coast and who’s embarrassed for my hometown. I’m trying hard not to let this lead to a national scandal. That’s why I’m calling. What are you going to do about Dr. Balaban?”
On the other end of the hall, another phone rang. A classmate called out that Nancy Judy was on the line. I knew he had yelled loud enough that Jackson must have heard.
“So here’s where we are,” I said. “I’ll keep talking to commissioners, pushing for you to hold hearings. And if you don’t, I guess Dallas will have to have a national scandal.”
It was a pure bluff.
* * *
—
My hall m
ates discovered what I was doing with the Dallas politicians. While Carl and Franz found the undertaking bizarre, others considered it hilarious. I told each commissioner to call me on “my direct line,” which was the number for the pay phone down the hall that never received incoming calls. When it rang, my hall mates knew to either be silent or simulate the noise of a newsroom. A student once started typing near the phone to lend realism with sound effects.
Stuart Couch, the member of AID who was also a counselor with the county, phoned to let me know that the commissioners were planning to bury the case. They suspected that this Kurt Eichenwald guy couldn’t bring in more national news media.
I decided to go all in. I telephoned Jim Jackson and castigated him, saying I had heard about the plans. “I tried to protect Dallas,” I said, “but if this is the path you want to take, I guess the commissioners and the city deserve the terrible publicity.”
After a short back-and-forth, I hung up. I had done everything I could for Balaban. I could only hope my last tirade proved effective.
* * *
—
Couch called me two days later. “Did you arrange for a 60 Minutes advance man to come here?” he asked.
“What?” How would I know anyone from 60 Minutes?
“Yeah, we’re hearing from 60 Minutes. Jackson is blaming you. He said you threatened to bring them in.”
I chortled. “I never said anything about 60 Minutes. And no, I had nothing to do with it.”
“Well,” Couch said with a laugh, “however it happened, everything has changed. They’re scheduling hearings for March 1.”
I hung up and told the story to my neighbors. This was total victory. With public hearings, the politicians would have to find a solution. Balaban was safe.
Weeks later, my mother forwarded a letter from the mayor of Dallas that had been addressed to me at my parents’ home. I was rushing to lunch, so after fishing the envelope out of my mailbox, I ran to the dining hall, waiting to open it until I picked up my food. I found a table with some friends, then opened the letter. I broke into laughter.
“The mayor of Dallas is appointing me to his new task force for handicapped employment!” I exclaimed. “They still have no idea I’m a college student!”
The Balaban case drove my reporting for the rest of my career. I learned never to dismiss even the most unbelievable story. I discovered that the skills for persuading people to cooperate matched those for successful telemarketing: Never lie, assess character, appeal to principles, answer every question, and determine what impediments might keep them from speaking. Reporters need persistence, not the name of some major publication behind them, to crack a story. The next call, the next document, the next confrontation, might provide the information that exposes truth.
* * *
—
Dickerson stopped me in a hallway in the administration building and asked if I had seen my new neurologist yet.
“Nope,” I lied. “But I have an appointment.”
When she asked for the date, I told her I didn’t remember but had it written down in my dorm room. She then discussed the seizures I had experienced since returning to school—she knew when they’d happened, where, and even that Carl had helped me back to my room after one occurred.
“Well,” I said, “I’ve never denied I have poorly controlled epilepsy.”
A few days later, my parents received a letter from Dickerson that they found unnerving in its detail. I had not seen my new neurologist, she wrote, then added out of nowhere that the school refused to assist me in traveling to Philadelphia for appointments. Instead, she again suggested I consult a neurologist near the school who had been recommended by the health center. None of us understood the travel condition. The University of Pennsylvania was walking distance from the commuter rail station; I had always planned to use public transportation. The repeated urging that I see their recommended neurologist convinced us all that the administration was up to something. Otherwise, why would they care who treated me?*
The letter also reported specifics of my seizures—including when and where they had happened—and described them as occurring at the same rate and intensity as in the first semester. She mentioned that the security department had never been contacted about these episodes and griped I was not keeping the health center staff informed, a strange complaint given that cutting off their involvement had been a condition of my return. She also disclosed she was checking my attendance—fortunately, I hadn’t missed a single class.
She ended the letter with these words: “I have promised Kurt that he will be informed first, and consulted fully, if any new recommendations are made or decisions reached.”
My parents sent the correspondence to Morrison, Cushing, my lawyer, and me. Cushing called me after reading it.
“Like I warned you, they’ve got you under a microscope,” he said. “Be careful.”
* * *
—
As required under my readmission agreement, I searched for a psychiatrist, again making sure it was someone with no connection to Swarthmore. I found one in Philadelphia, and we discussed my history, my fears of injury, my confrontation with the college. Then the conversation sputtered. After our third session, he called it quits.
“You don’t need a psychiatrist,” he said.
Not only were my emotions—fear of seizures, anger at the school, guilt about hurting friends—normal, he said, but it would be worrisome if I didn’t experience them. Our conversations had become repetitive, and he didn’t want to waste our time trying to talk me out of rational feelings.
He suggested I find a support group for people with epilepsy or maybe a counselor. Obviously, he cautioned, I should stay away from Swarthmore’s psychologists. But he promised, if the school called, he would only say that he could not discuss a patient. He would not tell them our sessions had ended.
I left the appointment amused. Weeks earlier, Swarthmore had argued I was so mentally ill that I could not return to school. Now a psychiatrist insisted I was too well balanced to need his help. I looked up the name of a counselor and wrote down the number. I would call him if I needed him.
* * *
—
As increasing numbers of Swarthmore students learned about my epilepsy, a bizarre and unexpected reaction set in: anger and hatred directed at Carl and Franz.
Despite the tensions between us, I understood that my bad decisions and medical mistreatment had left them overwhelmed with complex emotions—guilt, love, anger, exhaustion, helplessness, frustration. I believed our close friendships would recover if they were given enough time and distance from me. Yet they continued to come to my aid after a seizure, whether it occurred in our suite or if someone called them for help. At times, they were amazed that other students seemed unable to think rationally when confronted with a seizure. Once Carl was summoned to a classroom where I had gone into convulsions and was stunned to see that I had been left twisted inside a student chair/desk combination. He knew my contortions inside the metal rungs would likely leave me hurting when I awoke. How much sense does it take to get the furniture off the person who’s caught up like that? he thought.
Despite their lack of knowledge, others who had learned about my epilepsy only weeks or months before began lecturing Carl and Franz. Although I didn't learn of this until years later, many of these newcomers treated me as a delicate victim while I was unconscious, and angrily castigated Carl or Franz when they spoke to me after a seizure with their typical ribald, teasing humor. Such joviality, these students insisted, demeaned the seriousness of a condition that they thought should be managed with gravity, not jokes.
Classmates I barely knew lashed out at my roommates. Once I went into convulsions in Mertz Hall and someone called Carl and Franz to help. I was near the entryway, and both of them were concerned that passersby would see me looking disheveled and inju
red while I was unconscious. “We were very conscious of your dignity,” Franz told me years later about the Mertz seizure. “We didn’t want you to be lying there with your shirt hanging out and your face sideways in front of people. We wanted people to know you as the Kurt that you were. We didn’t want to expose you.”
Most people agreed to leave me alone when asked. One student, Anna, was drunk and started asking innumerable questions that my roommates considered invasive of my privacy. Franz told her that I was fine and that I just needed to be left alone.
Anna exploded. “You two guys are such assholes!” she shouted. “You think that you’re the only ones who know anything about this. You act as though this is your own personal problem. Well, why don’t you two go fuck yourselves!”
She stormed away, leaving Carl and Franz behind, stunned. Years later, Franz still described that moment as traumatic, because no one had ever spoken to him with a voice laced with such hatred.
My roommates protected me by not disclosing that I had become the object in some tug-of-war, with them on one side and, on the other, near-strangers eager to join the excitement. Carl likened it, years later, to members of a platoon returning from years at war and being lectured by soldiers who had never seen a battlefield.
Only once did I witness this kind of behavior myself. We were in our suite and a friend named Shelly was visiting. Carl was in a bad mood and yelled at me about something. Shelly in turn angrily demanded that he treat me better because of all I had been through. Before I could intervene, Carl jumped up and scrambled for the door.
“Fuck you!” he shouted as he rushed out of the room.
“Fuck you too!” Shelly roared back.
She turned to me, the anger still visible in her expression. Before she said a word, I brought my index finger close to her face.
A Mind Unraveled Page 29