Chapter 12
Joe Giles sat by his mother’s bedside. His eyes were fixed to the floor; his chin was resting on the knuckles of his hands. To the nurse standing behind him, he appeared merely deep in thought, but his insides were roiling from the private war he waged. Though Joe could not see his enemy, he could readily sense its dark presence. His adversary was as merciless as it was shapeless, relentless as it was cunning. Blessedly, years of treatment had made it possible to detect his foe’s advancement. Early detection—that was the preferred weapon Joe had learned to wield; it was the key to defeating this scourge before it could consume him.
Inside his mother’s equipment-jammed hospital room, Joe felt the enemy creeping steadily forward, searching for holes in his defenses to exploit. Stress and fear were fuel for this adversary. With his mother comatose, both emotions were in ready supply. If he was less vigilant, cracks in his barricade would widen, allowing the enemy to push deeper within. He had to stay mindful of its presence. For his mother’s sake, he had to stay sane.
Joe looked to fortify his defenses with a sound—some specific noise in the room that he could focus on. It would help, he knew, to ground him in the reality of his mother’s condition, painful as that reality was to face. In the early years after the onset of his disorder, Joe’s hallucinations were a constant threat. To combat them required not only increasingly high doses of antipsychotic drugs but also constant engagement and stimulation. An idle mind was an invitation for his adversary to enter his house and tear apart reality with the thoroughness of a demolition team. Thanks to Walderman, Joe was learning new ways to stay episode free. Right now he needed every trick in the book.
It took a moment for Joe to lock onto a useful sound, but it was there, a soft, rhythmic rise and fall of a machine breathing steadily in the stillness of the room like a sleeping animal. The ventilator that kept his mother alive could help keep Joe present with her as well. He concentrated on each mechanical breath as though it were his own.
The nurse tending to his mother’s needs touched Joe’s broad, muscled shoulders with a practiced tenderness. Her touch surprised Joe, and for a moment he let his concentration wane. Joe clenched his eyes tighter, demanding more of himself in the process.
Focus!
Focus! he commanded himself again.
It was too late. Soon as he unclenched his eyes, he saw that his mother had miraculously shifted position. It was a startling sight, because he knew it was an impossible one as well. She had turned her head and was now facing him. Her eyes, shuttered before, were open wide and golden yellow, like those of a wolf. He could smell her, too, a sharp and pungent odor, as though she had been bathed in some medicinal antiseptic. The stench filled his nostrils and made him gag. The noise of her ventilator rose, too, in a crescendo so deafening Joe had to cover his ears.
His mother’s mouth, framed by thin lips that were cracked and raw, somehow had been freed from the repressive oxygen mask. As she began to speak, all color in the room faded to shades of gray, except for her eyes, which stayed that disturbing yellow.
“Help me,” his mother wheezed in a breathy whisper. “Pleeaassse, Joe. Help me.”
His mother’s bony, veined hand reached out from her hospital bed and touched Joe on the leg. He leapt to his feet, startling the nurse standing behind him, who in turn cried out in fright. With a shake of his head, Joe made a furtive glance about the room, relieved but also saddened to see his mother’s gaze as it had been before, fixed to the ceiling, her eyes again closed, the oxygen mask back in place.
It was a dream perhaps, he thought. Maybe he had fallen asleep and had a dream, nothing more. But it could be more. It could be the enemy, the schizophrenia that had plagued his adult years creeping up on him, craftily beating back the drugs, which formed only part of his defenses.
Schizophrenia.
Joe settled himself back onto the vinyl-covered armchair. His breathing grew shallower and more rapid. The nurse came around to face him. She kneeled low, perhaps to make her presence less threatening.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
She touched him on his knee, and this time Joe did not flinch. He nodded that he was fine, but did not feel ready to speak.
“You gave me quite a fright,” the nurse said.
Joe knew better than to ask if she had seen his mother open her eyes or heard her speak to him. Whether it was a dream or a waking nightmare, the moment was his alone to experience. If it was the schizophrenia baring its teeth, Joe reminded himself that it was simply a chemical reaction in his brain, something to do with too much dopamine in the nerve cell synapses and D2 receptors, or so he’d been told.
Despite the nurse’s continued attempts to reassure him, Joe still felt ill at ease. He wasn’t sure if he had been dreaming or not, and decided the experience might make for an interesting post on his blog, the aptly titled Divided Mind, taken from the Greek roots of schizophrenia. Comparing dreams to a schizophrenic episode would get his readers chatting, Joe suspected.
Over the years Joe’s blog had garnered a loyal readership, and its popularity had been growing steadily among mental health patients and professionals alike. There was a powerful sense of community that Joe had unwittingly tapped into with his entertaining, often self-deprecating prose. Heartrending comments from readers claiming their lives had been changed in positive ways because of Joe’s informal community motivated him to keep updating the blog regularly. It was as healing for Joe to write and interact with his virtual friends as it was for them to read and interact with each other. He felt he needed them now more than ever.
“When will she wake up?” Joe asked the nurse.
“I don’t know,” the nurse replied. “You must be tired.”
“A little. I’m more afraid of what will happen to Mom.”
“Of course you are. I understand.”
No, you don’t understand, Joe wanted to say. I need her more than you can imagine. Instead, he kept silent.
“Would you like me to get you a drink of water?”
“That would be nice,” Joe said.
After she left the room, Joe reached out to take hold of his mother’s limp hand. Intellectually, he knew her hand was cold and clammy to the touch, but at that moment it felt as warm as an August sun.