Page 113 of Mine

“Mr. Stone?”

Hands in my pockets, I lift my head and turn from the window I wasn’t looking out of.

The psychiatrist, Dr. Gorran, a short portly bald fellow with comically large hands, is standing by the door of the waiting room. I don’t like him. I don’t know why.

They’d asked me to wait at the end of the psychiatric wing of the hospital, in a room that appears to be a patient room they’ve transformed into a caregiver information hub. It’s small and suffocating and smells like burned coffee.

Gorran is followed by another doctor, this one I haven’t met. She’s Asian, tall and svelte, with a sharp angular haircut that sweeps her jawline.

Gorran must have called my name several times before I responded, because they’re both frowning at me in a concerned manner. In the same way everyone looks at me since I arrived at this godforsaken place.

“Mr. Stone, this is my colleague, Dr. Wu.” We shake hands. “Dr. Wu is a neurologist who has been working with Dr. Stevens on your wife’s case.”

I nod. Over the last two days, I’ve met enough doctors to last a lifetime.

Dr. Wu steps forward. “Would you like to have a seat?”

“No. Thank you.”

She dips her chin and focuses on the laptop in the corner, where she proceeds to key through several log-in screens before asking Gorran to hit the lights.

The room goes dark.

Gorran hovers next to me, a thick file in his baseball-mitt-sized hands. This is his thing, I’ve noted, expert invader of personal space.

A black-and-white X-ray of a human brain pops onto one side of the screen. Next to it is another.

Using a laser pointer, Dr. Wu begins.

“These are the MRI scans taken of your wife’s brain this morning. The image on the left is what we consider to be a normal brain in a healthy individual the same age and sex as your wife. The image on the left is your wife’s. As you can see here,” she waves a little red dot across the screen, “your wife has markedly less white matter than the image on the left. Specifically, thinner cortexes in both the frontal and temporal lobes. It’s important to note that thinning cortex is normal in aging, but your wife’s is out of the norm for her age.”

“In a nutshell,” Gorran says, “this advanced thinning can cause the lobes to misfire, so to speak. In your wife’s case, the frontal lobe is responsible for vital functions like memory, judgment, fine motor skills, and social appropriateness. The temporal lobe is responsible for memory too, but also regulating emotions.”

“That’s right.” Wu clicks to another side. “What I see in your wife’s images are congruent with Dr. Gorran’s diagnosis of moderate to severe schizophrenia. In combining what we now know about abnormalities in her MRI, along with Dr. Gorran’s assessment, our team recommends increasing the dosage of the medication Dr. Gorran has already prescribed, as well as adding ...”

Dr. Wu rattles off several drugs I’ve never heard of, ones that I will spend hours researching this evening, just like I did the others, and just like I did when we received Gorran’s life-changing diagnosis.

She asks, “When, exactly, did your wife’s mental health issues begin?”

Almost immediately after she agreed to marry me, and I locked her in the house to guarantee her safety and the safety of our baby. But I can’t say that, of course, so I dance around it.

“After we lost our daughter, Chloe. Literally, that day, she went to lie down in bed and never got back up. For days. She was never the same after that. I thought she was sick, honestly, but the doctor said she wasn’t. And from there, she went downhill drastically. She never wanted to leave the bed. She was diagnosed with PTSD and severe depression shortly after.”

Wu nods. “The exact cause of schizophrenia is unknown, but it is often triggered by a very traumatic episode, such as losing a child. Her diagnosis of depression was not wrong; it just likely advanced into her current condition.”

When no one says anything, Gorran flips open his notebook. “As you know, your wife was in severe psychosis when you brought her in to us, as well as dehydrated, likely from her captivity. She also had several contusions on her body. As of this morning, her blood tests and urinalysis have come back normal, and the medication has relieved her psychosis. Considering these things, we are looking at a release date of tomorrow.”

He closes the notebook and looks at me.

“You and I have already spoken about this, but I want to reiterate that I strongly suggest that your wife be transferred to an inpatient psychiatric facility for at least a few months to get her medication?—”

“No. As I already told you, I will take care of her.”

His lips form into a thin line. “Okay then, Mr. Stone. I want to warn you that while we are going through the process of finding the ideal dosage and medication for a psychiatric patient, the patient can have relapses, anger issues, severe depression, suicidal thoughts or actions, or in some cases, be bedridden while dealing with side effects.”

“I understand.”

He turns to Dr. Wu. She is studying me so closely that it makes me itch.

---