How I Rescued My Brain (2 page)

I'M SITTING COMFORTABLY
in the chair in the yellow corridor when a new man and a woman, both dressed in white, say hello.

‘Oh, hello,' I say.

They tell me I am to have a CT scan. The thought excites me. I don't think I've ever had one before, but I know what they are: I've read reports from CT scans in client files, detailing the effects of a brain injury or disease.

They have a wheelchair and push me into another corridor. In and out of lifts we go. It is fun.

Now we're entering a room with a giant shiny doughnut, and a sliding platform that goes into it. My head will go into the doughnut, they say.

Before I know it, I'm being pushed away from the CT room — they say the scan is over, but I don't remember having it. How odd!

Now I'm back in an armchair in the corridor. It feels like home. I close my eyes; I'm tired. Anna is still with me, but we're not talking much.

All of a sudden there's a new man, older, with a younger man beside him. The older one must be important, because his face is serious and he's wearing a tie. Oh, they're both doctors, I realise suddenly; they have stethoscopes around their necks. The younger one must be his junior.

‘Hello, I'm Doctor —,' he says, but his name slips away before I can catch it. He's standing up, looking down at me. He seems worried by something. Is it me? He also wants to know what day of the week it is and who the prime minister is, and he wants me to count backwards from one hundred by threes. I think I do all right with this one. I've always been fairly good at maths.

‘What is the last thing you remember happening?' he asks.

I do remember something. ‘I was playing guitar with my friend Nick. Last night.' It doesn't seem long ago.

As with the other staff, his words appear out of the fog, my answers disappearing soon afterwards. He's asking a lot more questions than the other doctor. He has a strong energy about him and I'm getting rattled again. He tells me something that seems important but I don't quite catch it. Then he's gone.

Anna has gone too. But this is okay. Something else will happen. I'll just wait.

A WOMAN IS
standing in front of me, saying my name. She must be an office person: she has a penholder around her neck with a fat pen in it. She's dressed in blue pants and a spotty blouse. She gives me a clipboard with a form on it. ‘This is for your health insurance,' she says.

The woman wants me to fill it in. My name and date of birth — I know these. As I go down the page, the questions get harder, and they waft in and out of the fog in my mind. I'm not sure about my answers. She wants me to sign at the bottom. My instinct says that I shouldn't sign something I don't understand, but Anna's not here to tell me what to do.

‘I don't want to sign,' I say. ‘I'm not sure about it.'

She nods and goes away.

Now I'm walking with a woman, also dressed in blue; she's told me that I'm staying in a ward tonight. I'm not sure if I've stayed in hospital before, but I'm so tired that I think it would be great to spend the night here. I follow her into a lift, through doors, and along corridors. We stop when she speaks to another person in blue behind a counter, this time without a glass window. The woman in blue, who I think must be a nurse, leads me into a room with three men around my age, each in pyjamas. She points to a freshly made bed. I lie down. Ah, peace and quiet.

Suddenly, without warning, there is a loud noise: wheezing and then whirring. It pierces my brain. I look to where the noise is coming from. The man in the bed beside mine is breathing into a tube attached to a machine.

I can't stay in this room with this sound. I follow my steps back, needing to think hard about which direction I came from. My sound bubble has been shattered and I feel distressed. I get to the counter. There are two nurses here now. I tell them I cannot be in the same room as the man with the machine.

‘You'll get used to it,' says one of them.

‘It won't be on all the time,' says the other.

Their words don't reassure me at all. They don't understand how much it hurts my brain.

‘I don't want to stay here anymore,' I say.

I need to leave this place. I don't know where I'll go, but I'll catch a taxi. I walk along the corridor, away from the noise of the machine, and come to an area with lifts. I'm about to get into a lift when I notice upholstered chairs along the walls. They look soft. There's no one around and it is quiet. I'll rest here awhile before I leave.

I close my eyes and follow my breathing; my sense of calm returns. The idea of escaping slides away.

Then I hear someone come and sit down beside me. ‘Hello,' a voice says. I open my eyes: it is a man in a security guard's uniform.

‘Hello,' I say.

Another security guard, a bigger man, comes and stands in front of me.

‘You're not going to do a runner, are you?' the first one asks.

‘No,' I say, but it reminds me that I had wanted to escape. If I make a dash for the lift now, they'll catch me. The first man says something else to me, but I'm not going to answer; I'm going to be with my thoughts, my eyes closed.

I hear the second guard sit alongside the first, and they exchange a few words and laugh. Then the second guard leaves.

We've been sitting quietly for a while when my name is called. I open my eyes to see one of the nurses standing in front of me. She's smiling and says she has arranged a new room for me; an elderly patient who is going home in the morning has agreed to move into the bed next to the machine. I'm so grateful; I'd like to thank him, but when I follow the nurse back into the ward I can't remember where the first room was.

The nurse shows me the new room, and straightaway I'm reassured. The other men are elderly and seem quiet. ‘Hello,' I say. Two of them respond; one is asleep.

I'm about to sit on the bed when I catch sight of the windows. Through them, a long, horizontal strip of orange is glowing, topped with purple and black. What is it? I stare and stare; I can't work it out. Then I realise: it's a sunset.

How could this be? It should be morning.

I stand and watch the orange glow become thinner and more intense as the black above it grows. The lights in the room get brighter and brighter, and begin to sting my eyes. It must be night. Incredible. Well, perhaps it will be dinnertime soon. I haven't eaten all day. Or did Anna give me a banana earlier?

The night goes by. The lights and noises are different from those at home. I sleep soundly, except when the nurse comes in to check on us and I hear low voices and rustling. When it's my turn, she apologises and shines a pin-light torch in my eyes. It stings a little. She asks me to wriggle my toes and squeeze her hand. ‘I don't want to hurt you,' I say. She responds kindly: ‘It won't hurt,' she says. ‘Grip as tightly as you can.'

It seems that in no time at all, daylight fills up the windowpanes. I realise I'm hungry. A woman pushing a multi-level trolley brings me a tray with a small packet of cereal, stiff cold toast, and tea. It's like aeroplane food, as if I'm going on a holiday. I enjoy the breakfast, even though it's not what I'd have at home.

This morning is different from yesterday. It feels as if I've woken from a dream. I'm sure now that I'm in hospital, and that something really has happened to me. I remember more clearly the night before I came in. I'd woken with a headache, walked to the kitchen, taken a Panadol, and gone back to bed. That's the last memory I have before being here.

A nurse comes in and tells me that the specialist — the serious doctor — will be doing his rounds this morning and will discuss the test results with me. I am to stay in my room until he comes. Afterwards, I can walk around. I ask for a headache tablet.

I'm looking forward to seeing the specialist: I'm keen to know what the results say, what he thinks has happened to me. In the meantime, I enjoy getting showered, dressed, and organised. The man next to me asks what I'm in for and I tell him that I've lost my memory for some reason. I chat a little with the others and then look out the window. We are up high, and I peer down on oblong houses with broccoli trees in their backyards.

The phone beside my bed rings, interrupting my reverie. It's my psychiatrist, Doctor Banister. Anna has called him, he says. ‘What's happened?' he asks.

I tell him that I can't recall most of yesterday.

‘What do you think brought this on?'

I remember I'd had a huge panic attack the day before I came to hospital, after a meeting with our barrister. He'd told me that Anna and I were going to be sued.

Doctor Banister asks me what tests have been done. I mention the CT scan and the blood tests, and say I'm waiting to discuss the results with the specialist.

‘You may have had a psychogenic fugue: an episode of amnesia. But we'll need to wait and see what the results reveal. I'll try and come in to see you. If it's a fugue, you could come and stay at a clinic I work for, Seaview Psychiatric Clinic, for a longer rest. I can discuss this with your doctor.'

‘Okay,' I say. That does sound good.

Not long afterwards, the specialist comes in and stands by my bed, with a young female doctor this time. He looks fresh but more rushed than yesterday. He asks me how I'm feeling.

‘I'm woolly in the head, as if I'm not sure I'm really here,' I say. ‘I've got a mild headache, too.'

He says that the blood tests came back negative, my heart is fine, and the CT scan did not show any problems with my brain. He turns to his colleague: ‘It's not TGA.' He doesn't realise that I know what this is: transient global amnesia. A brief episode of memory loss, cause unknown. I'm disappointed; it would be an interesting clinical experience to have. Thinking it might be useful, I tell him that my psychiatrist rang and thought I might have had a psychogenic fugue. He looks relieved to hear this suggestion. I mention Doctor Banister's idea that I could go to the Seaview clinic. The specialist says he will request a review by a hospital psychiatrist in case Doctor Banister doesn't get in to see me. He'll order some new blood tests and a urine test. He wants me to stay for another night so that they can monitor me, and to give him time to talk with Doctor Banister. After this, if he's satisfied, I can go to Seaview, as long as Anna takes me.

EVERYONE HAS GONE.
It's a relief; without people asking me things, I slip back into a river of peace. But I try to remember to look at clocks, to keep track of time; it slips by quickly when I don't.

For the first time, I notice my mobile phone on the bedside table. If I turn it on, there will be messages, and people might want things of me. I realise how little I've thought about the troubles Anna and I are facing outside these walls. I'm not going to turn it on, for now. Instead I'd like to do something active. There is a library in the hospital somewhere, which I went to when Anna was in the early stages of labour several years ago. It has medical and psychology journals I don't usually get to see. I'll go look for it.

I put on my shoes and walk down the corridor. Each doorway I go through feels new and vibrant, like I'm a tourist in a foreign city. I follow a direction on an overhead sign, walk a short distance, and then can't remember what the sign said, or the direction the arrow was pointing in. The more I concentrate, the more my brain hurts. I realise I'm lost. Well, I'll just follow my nose.

After a time I see three of the hospital staff walking along in front of me. They are chatting and laughing, having a good time. I like their energy, so I follow them. We end up in a canteen and they sit down. It occurs to me that a coffee would be good.

As I look around, it strikes me that everyone here is hospital staff. Almost all have lanyards with photo ID tags hanging around their necks. They favour the booths; the large open area near the windows, with tables and chairs, is sparsely populated. That's where I'll sit. I stand in line to order my coffee, trying to look like I do this all the time. I'm not sure I'm meant to be here.

I sip the coffee by a window. I don't think it's very good, but I enjoy it. I watch the staff. They sit in their groups of colour: the blues, the turquoises, the whites. Some are also in regular clothes. They laugh and throw their arms around, telling stories over their sandwiches and hot food. It's like a party; they're more alive here than in the wards and corridors. Suddenly I have that feeling again: I'm not sure this is real. It's a little unsettling, now. But I'll act as if it is real, to be on the safe side.

After a while, I realise I should head back for lunch. Before I left my room, I wrote down the letter and number of my ward. On my way back, the signs are easier to follow, and by asking staff for directions once or twice, I find my way ‘home'.

A nurse tells me I can be discharged that night, once they have the paperwork done. Doctor Banister hasn't been in to see me yet; I wonder if he will.

No other doctors come by that afternoon.

In the evening, Anna and our youngest daughter, Amelia, turn up. It's lovely to see them. Amelia, who is eight, gives me her bashful smile. She's keen to check out my bed and drink my milk from the little blue containers.