Home > Echoes of the Heart(2)

Echoes of the Heart(2)
Author: L.A. Casey

“She drove to the twenty-four-hour garage a couple of hours ago for some cigarettes and was hit by a drunk driver but she’s doin’ okay,” Dr O’Rourke said in a rushed breath. “Her leg is fractured quite badly, but that is the only physical injury she has sustained apart from a dustin’ of minor cuts. The driver of the other vehicle wasn’t so lucky: he was pronounced dead at the scene. He wasn’t wearin’ a seatbelt.”

I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. I was looking right at Dr O’Rourke when he spoke, I could hear each word he said clearly, but none of it felt like it was really happening. I don’t know how to explain it other than that I was imposing on an important moment in someone else’s life.

“I . . . I can’t believe this.”

“It’s hard to believe, I know, but your ma wanted me to come and tell you instead of the police showin’ up to inform ye since they took a statement from her about what happened. Luckily, she has her dash cam that you gifted her at Christmas last month as evidence since it was recordin’ at the time of the accident.”

I felt my head bob up and down.

“I can’t process this,” I said, lifting a hand to my temple and rubbing. “This feels like it’s not happenin’.”

“That sounds a lot like shock to me,” Dr O’Rourke said. “Drink some more of your tea.”

I did as suggested and drank some more, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something I was missing. Dr O’Rourke was speaking and acting normally, but his eyes . . . I could see a haunting wave of turmoil within them. I knew there was something that he wasn’t telling me.

“There’s more,” I said, setting my cup down. “Somethin’ else is wrong.”

Dr O’Rourke lifted his hands to his face and scrubbed up and down until his skin was flushed. When he lowered his arms, he took in a deep breath and exhaled it before he glanced around, looking for something.

“Where did I put your inhaler?”

Automatically, I looked to the white plastic box on the wall of my kitchen that Risk had drilled into place. We had one in each room of our cottage; we jokingly called them my air boxes because inside of each container was an inhaler. I had severe asthma and was also prone to panic attacks. I always carried my two inhalers, a blue emergency inhaler for when I had attacks and a brown inhaler to combat symptoms throughout my day-to-day life. I always had a blue reliever inhaler in each air box inside my home just in case.

The air box I was staring at was open and empty.

“There it is.”

Dr O’Rourke got up, moved across the small room, and picked my inhaler and its cap up from the floor. He shook the inhaler, then pressed on it and sent a puff of life-saving medicine into the air.

“Still works,” he relaxed. “I was worried I’d broken it.”

He capped my inhaler then placed it in front of me. I looked from it to him and blinked. “D’you think whatever you’re goin’ to tell me will trigger another attack?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I dunno, maybe.”

My gut clenched. “Just tell me, sir. Please.”

He exhaled another big breath and for a few seconds he said nothing. It frustrated me; I wanted to reach over and shake him until he said whatever it was that needed to be said. The suspense was killing me.

“A couple of months ago,” he began. “I noticed a pattern with your mother.”

“Okay.”

“Nothin’ major, just little things. Forgetful moments.”

I raised a brow. “You noticed she’s been forgetful? She had a stroke three years ago, of course she’s goin’ to be a little forgetful now and then.”

Since her unexpected stroke, she had some problems with her memory as well as having a little difficulty swallowing, but other than that, she had recovered.

“Now and then isn’t a pattern, Frankie. She is forgetful frequently; forgettin’ newly learned information is worryin’.”

I shifted. “How worrying?”

“Worryin’ enough for me to be concerned. A few weeks ago, I made some at-home tests for her, simple memory tests that a child could complete. She got four out of ten questions correct. She couldn’t remember the things I’d asked her to remember over the period of a week and it was a red flag for me. I talked her into havin’ some scans done a week ago.”

“Scans?” I repeated. “What d’you mean?”

“CT, MRI.”

“Right,” I leaned back in my chair. “Brain scans.”

“Yes,” he shifted. “Last week, we got the results.”

“And?”

“And,” he looked down to his hands. “Accordin’ to the scans that were taken, she has a build-up of beta-amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in her brain.”

I scowled. “I don’t know what any of that means, Dr O’Rourke.”

“It’s a diagnosis.”

“A diagnosis of what?”

“Early-onset Alzheimer’s.”

I didn’t know what I was expecting the man to say, but those words were absolutely not it. For a moment, I said nothing and didn’t move, then I huffed a puff of air through my nose as I silently chuckled at the ridiculousness of what I was hearing. It was entirely too insane to even comprehend.

“She’s forty-six.” I shook my head. “She doesn’t have Alzheimer’s. You’re crazy.”

Dr O’Rourke closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his stubbled face. When he lifted his eyelids and looked back at me, I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. The man’s eyes were a bottomless pool of misery. He was hurting.

“No,” I practically snapped, all traces of humour vanishing. “D’you hear yourself? Alzheimer’s? That is an elderly disease. She doesn’t have that.”

“It’s more common in people older than sixty-five, but a lot people below that age have the disease too. It’s just not as prevalent so ye rarely hear of it, especially in a town as small as ours. People who have suffered from a stroke are at risk of developin’ it.”

I lifted my trembling hands to my face and tried to think. Processing the doctor’s words was like swallowing ground chalk, I couldn’t do it. Risk popped into my head. I needed him. I needed him next to me so I could try and make sense of what Dr O’Rourke was telling me.

“I can’t believe this.” I dropped my hands, not being able to accept what I was hearing as the truth. “There has to be some sort of mistake. A misdiagnosis. That’s what this is. The doctor was wrong.”

“Your ma’s scans have been reviewed by a team of doctors at the hospital, Frankie, as well as specialists in London. They all came to the same conclusion with their diagnosis. It’s Alzheimer’s.”

My body began to shake uncontrollably.

“She’ll have treatment,” I sputtered. “We’ll find the best doctor who specialises in Alzheimer’s and we’ll go from there. She’s young, she’s mostly healthy if you don’t count what happened when she had her stroke. She’ll be fine, she’ll beat this easily.”

“Honey,” Dr O’Rourke frowned deeply. “There is no cure for Alzheimer’s. It is a progressive disease.”

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