Misdiagnosed by Jody Berger

Author:Jody Berger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2014-07-28T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Amen to That

Jonathan and I landed at John Wayne Airport and rented a car to drive the half mile to the Amen Clinic. (It’s California. People drive everywhere.) We had appointments that afternoon, so with our luggage still in the car, we took seats in the waiting room. Before long, a social worker came to get me.

She had long, dark hair, and clear skin and large, dark eyes. She looked young. And kind—she looked kind. She showed me to her office, told me a bit about herself and asked if I had questions. I didn’t, not right then.

“OK,” she said and added three unrelated words. We talked a little more about the clinic and how long she’d been there and, after a few minutes, she asked if I remembered the three words. I did.

Then she opened a file with the fifteen-page questionnaire I had filled out and faxed in weeks before. There were questions about mood swings, sleeping patterns and eating habits. There were questions about my childhood, who I leaned on for support, how often I felt stress and how I handled it. I told her I didn’t have a problem handling stress. And I believed it.

The social worker went through the pages, confirming some answers and asking about others. When we got to the stress section, we spent a lot of time talking about the MS diagnosis. I hated how it was delivered. I hated how I reacted to it—by canceling a trip I had been looking forward to. I hated the doctor who gave it to me, and I hated him more when he wouldn’t answer my questions or return my calls.

And still, I was scared he was right. I wanted it ruled out. I asked if the doctor who would interpret and review my SPECT scans could do the same with my MRI. She said sure, so I gave her the CD.

The interview continued as she asked about my friends, my family, my lover. I told her about Bruce and how he did amazing things like supporting me through this adventure in health, that he was paying for the brain scan I was about to get. And that even though he took care of big things like that, it made me a bit sad that he wasn’t available for simple things, like a Sunday brunch or a midday call. She seemed to understand why that would be hard, and she seemed so empathetic, so friendly, that I wanted to ask her about her own relationship, like we were friends chatting over coffee.

We weren’t. She was a social worker gathering information about me and my brain. She asked me to count backward by subtracting seven at a time from one hundred. After a few minutes she stopped and asked for a number.

“Thirty-seven,” I said.

She then asked about speeding tickets and traffic accidents, how often I experienced déjà vu and whether I remembered those three words again. I did.

I thanked her and went back to the waiting room, curious about what she’d learned from asking me to remember three words and count backward.

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