White Matter Disease: Part 2

Part II of a short science fiction story in two parts.

uncredited MRI scan image

Part 1 is here and we highly recommended you do read that first. For optimal understanding. If you don’t mind.

Decisions

Luke was waiting for me with his beaming smile the second time we went to Omnimage. As he saw us approach, he placed the fingerprint scanner on the desk in front of me, sprayed it with a sterile spray then wiped it.

“If you’ll just log in, Mr. McDonnell. It’s protocol now you are registered with us. For security. And you are?” he turned to Edie.

“Edie, Edie Bowe. Matt’s fiancée.”

“Ah very good. Ms Bowe. Can we put you as Mr. McDonnell’s next of kin?”

We looked at each other; death wasn’t something we had thought about before, but now the possibility of it was alive. We both nodded. “Yes of course,” we said, as one.

“And could I possibly ask you, Ms. Bowe, as Mr. McDonnell’s next of kin, to scan your fingerprint, so we have a biometric ID for you. For security. As next of kin.” There was a moment of hesitation when Edie began to extend her finger, but then stopped. “All personal information is kept completely confidential. It’s just so we can be sure who everyone is that enters the Centre. It’s regulations, I’m afraid. If you wish to accompany your fiancée.” Luke beamed.

You would, wouldn’t you, if you cared about someone?.

The Second session with the MRI was much like the first, only longer. As I lay in the bed, feeling it creeping and pressing around my body, I thought about those snakes…what were they called? Cobras? No… boa constrictors, that was it. Lucy explained that to focus the imaging they would need to put a device on my head this time. She said it was a bit like a bicycle helmet, but I never saw it.

Not that time.

I was being inserted into the scanner before I thought about the playlist, but Lucy had already set Restful Seashore playing. I didn’t think to ask about putting on my own playlist until it was too late. But the soundscape was effective, like everything else, and then I was in the space again, with the flitting shapes and the almost but not quite whispering voices. I kept trying to look down my body to try and see out of the machine into the room, but of course I couldn’t. Then there was a point, when things seemed to be building to some sort of crescendo, I was sure I could feel something moving around inside my head. It was a shock, and I tried to move, but… no, I couldn’t. Then there were thudding, drum like implosive sensations and all the colours that you can see, the swirling shapes behind your eyelids, vanished. I opened my eyes but everything was utterly black… and then… I don’t recall anything else until the jolt of the examination bed woke me with a start as I was extruded from the machine.

When Lucy came to slide off the shades, I said to her “I was hoping to put my own music on this time; I brought some with me, but you didn’t ask.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry! We got such good results with Restful Seashore, I thought we’d better have that again. It was all set up for you, and you were in deep sleep within minutes. It does so help people, we find. I wouldn’t recommend changing the playlist, now that we have established your baselines. If you want the imaging to be optimal.”

I thought about this as I got dressed and before leaving the examination suite, I turned to her again, “You know, when you say I was in deep sleep within minutes, I really didn’t feel like I was asleep at all.”

“I can assure you that you were. Your brain activity was very clear. It’s all recorded.” She tapped on her tablet screen.

“But I could see things, hear things. I’m sure of it. Much more clearly than last time, and then at one point, everything went black. Really black. Completely black. Not like when you close your eyes…like there was nothing. Even when I opened my eyes. And I was aware of that.”

“That would be the imager, Mr. McDonnell. This scan was deeper, more powerful, to focus on the diseased areas of your brain. You were asleep, but your brain was being stimulated, making you see and hear things, just like a dream. That is all your dreams are.”

In the waiting area, Edie was sitting, reading. Fidgeting. She stood as soon as she saw Lucy “Can you tell me where the loos are?” she asked “I couldn’t find anybody, and I didn’t want to go wandering about. Too much water.” She pointed at the dispenser.

Lucy directed her through another featureless smoked glass door. There was a barely visible ‘WC’ sign on the wall, marked out only by a change of surface texture. It was no wonder she had not been able to find them. While we waited, Lucy asked how I felt, and in truth, I was beginning to feel a little strange. “I think I’ll ask Edie to drive us home.” Lucy agreed “The longer sessions can be disorienting,” she said, “rest when you get home, and stay hydrated.”

By the time we got home, I was feeling much worse than strange. The whispers, the flittering shadows, they were there all the time. When I got out of the car, I was overcome with nausea as I stood up, and dry heaved. Edie helped me upstairs to bed and brought me some tea and paracetamol.

“You look absolutely terrible love. We are going straight to the doctor tomorrow. This isn’t right.”

I was desperate to sleep, to try and stop what was going on in my head. On my phone, I had an ambient sound application that I had downloaded once when I took some yoga classes. Now, instead of zen gongs, I wanted the white noise of waves, I wanted Restful Seashore, or something like it. The hiss of static waves and the tumble of artificial beach pebbles seemed to work; I didn’t wake up until the next day. All seemed better, but Edie still insisted we went to the Doctor. She was worried; more worried than me. “You didn’t see what you looked like, love. Believe me. Now, don’t argue and get in the car.”

On the way, my phone buzzed to tell me I had an email and then a text. Then it rang. It was someone from the Centre, calling to make sure I had received the appointment reminders that had just arrived on my phone. When we got to the health centre, the doctor was available immediately “Because the MRI results were already back and it was best you saw the Doctor quickly.”

This time, there was a 3-dimensional image of my head, floating on his screen. Within its transparent blue-grey depths, solid, white amorphous blobs hung. It was strangely hypnotic seeing my own brain like this, looking so unreal, but yet, still, it was my brain. I was inside that; it was me. Edie was more interested in what the Doctor had to say; she had all the questions. I sat, silently, as the Doctor pointed out each area of damage, and what it meant, what symptoms it explained. I kept staring at his eyes.

“Don’t you think its strange,” I said, interrupting him. “You’re called Luke, the receptionist is called Lucy. There’s a Luke and a Lucy at Omnimage.” He stopped speaking; Edie looked at me like I was mad. “And you all have the same eyes. Isn’t that strange?”

He looked at me like he didn’t understand the question.

“I mean…what are the chances, biologically, I wonder.”

“Darling,” Edie said, firmly “I think we need to focus on your brain, not on the Doctor’s eyes, hmm?”

“I don’t know anyone at Omnimage, Matt,” said the Doctor “But it would be quite statistically rare for any four random people to share my eye colour. Quite a coincidence. Perhaps I should go to the clinic to meet them. Perhaps I have a long-lost cousin.” He smiled.

Any four random people, yes…

Somehow, his agreeing with me took all the strangeness of it away, and we returned to the matter of my brain. Things were not good. The images showed much more clearly the nature of the damage, and even within the space of the week or so between scans, there were signs of further degeneration. The Doctor zoomed into the image to show us smaller areas of damage not visible before.

But there were some possible treatments. Some required surgery, some involved drugs. I couldn’t be cured, but I could be stabilised until perhaps better treatments emerged. Or I could accept fate: six to nine months before severe debilitation would begin. I would lose mobility, coordination, vision and short-term memory. Within another six months I would lose some or all of those functions completely and cognitive functioning would begin to go. Within two to three years, I would very likely be dead.

“The treatments might work, however,” said the Doctor “drugs could give you perhaps three to five years more. Surgery is very risky, but could restart the clock if we remove the worst damage, but we still don’t know what has caused this in the first place, so…”

Edie gripped my hand as we stared at each other, both of us trying not to start the other crying.

“Or…” he said, pausing until we had both turned to look at him “there is a new experimental process that could be tried. If you were prepared to help with the emerging research. Initial results are very promising.”

“Go on,” Edie said.

“As I say, it is experimental. Emerging technology. I can’t refer you, but if you were interested in volunteering…? There could also be a financial benefit. For your family.”

“What do you mean?”

“Omnimage have new technology that is being trialled right now. They would treat you and pay you £50,000 for expenses. You would have to give up work, you see, and it will take ten weeks. If you recover, there will be no cost to you. If you don’t recover, your next of kin would also receive an ex-gratia payment of £150,000.”

“And could it cure me?”

“The results look promising. The treatments have side effects; you will seem worse before there is any improvement. But the same is true of chemotherapy, and surgery always carries…a risk of death.”

You would. Wouldn’t you?

Deconstruction

“We’ll have to leave you here, Ms Bowe,” Lucy said, at the waiting area, once I’d signed the consent forms via the finger print scanner. They sent me an email with the forms attached as a PDF, but I didn’t read it. I just scrolled to the bottom and clicked where it said “I have read and understood this document".

“Mr McDonnell, you will have to stay here with us for observation for at least two days, but after that Ms Bowe can come and collect you. You’ll need to come back to us each week for further sessions and for us to assess progress. If you experience severe loss of functions, which you might, Omnimage will arrange for you to have any care you might need at a private facility nearby.”

We said our goodbyes and hugged a crushing hug. I had a small overnight bag and that was all. They warned me that the procedure could deprive me of some faculties, at first, as the damaged areas were removed, but the treatments – there would be ten in all - would stimulate new growth, new connections. I would have to commit to the full course, or there was no point at all. The fifty grand carrot sat on the horizon. It felt like getting on a rollercoaster where you know you can’t get off until it’s over.

As I followed Lucy through the smoked glass door, I realised it reminded me of an airlock. When we got through the other side, instead of the usual changing room, we went on through a different door. I couldn’t recall it being there before, but then none of the doors looked like doors at all until they opened.

Something had been nagging at me for a couple of days since I learned the treatment was going to be Omnimage. I stopped. “Lucy, can I just ask… this isn’t a hospital, is it, so why is it ok for me to have medical procedures here?”

“Because this is research, Mr. McDonnell. You have volunteered as a subject for our research project. There is no surgery and no anaesthesia. But there will be a Doctor in attendance, of course, and every medical facility we need for any eventuality. You will be perfectly safe.”

Why did the way they said the word ‘safe’ make me feel so entirely the opposite? Was it a sixth sense? They say we have an inner eye, the pineal gland, in the centre of our brains and if that is true, then what was it seeing that I could not?

In the corridor beyond the corridor, there was another room for me to undress in, but the robe was different. It had Velcro fastenings right down the front because I might be lacking coordination after the procedure. In the hurtfully bright procedure room there was no huge machine, just a contour bed to lie in. Once I was in, its familiar grip fastened me in place.

“Comfortable?” asked Lucy, fingers at her tablet screen.

“Not too bad,” I said. The bed began to tilt upwards slightly from the head end and Lucy disappeared from view, returning with a drinking container. A tube protruded from it and she held it up to my mouth.

“Please drink this,” she smiled.

“What is it?” the fear began to rise I know she’s going to say ‘safe’…. I know it…

“A mild sedative and anti-emetic It will prevent you from feeling nausea. The procedures can have that effect. It’s just to make you comfortable.” She held my gaze with her bright grey eyes and implacable smile, then pushed the drinking tube lightly against my lips. “It’s strawberry flavoured,” she said. I sucked on the straw and smiled weakly when, indeed, it was strawberry flavoured.

“Let’s have some Restful Seashore,” she said next. The headphones went on and she left, saying “I’ll give you ten minutes to settle.” The lights dimmed and waves washed into my ears while electronic seabirds called. When she returned she was dressed in a contoured articulated suit, and holding a helmet, mesh like, organic, overlapping bands of white with many short tubes protruding from nodules all over it. She began to put it onto my head. It felt warm, it gripped me with pulsations as if was alive. This is very strange, a slow inner voice said, but it didn’t seem to matter.

“Is the Doctor here?” I tried to speak, but the words were distorted, slow and I drooled trying to get them to come out of my mouth.

“Yes, he’s here,” she said, and then Dr. Harris appeared from somewhere behind me, wearing a suit just like hers, fingers working at a tablet screen. From the ceiling, arms with dangling cables began to descend into view, dimly, behind them. I felt something brushing my shoulders lightly, felt the vibrations in my skull as things were attached to my head.

“Hello Matt,” said the Doctor. “Just relax, we’re almost ready to begin. Omnimage wanted me to tell you they are so grateful to you for volunteering. You will be helping so many others.” His skin seemed impossibly smooth and there was something covering his head, tightly fitting, slick, almost as if he had no hair.

“Luke…?” I managed to slur before speech failed me and Restful Seashore took me to that place between consciousness and that other state.

But.

This time, the visions were profoundly different. Instead of flittering shadows, there were forms, humanoid, humanlike, but also not. Smooth, grey, with limbs far too long. Moving, shuddering, pressing and closing in, touching me without sensation, moving away, grouping, merging, disappearing, returning. This time, the whispers were sounds, sounds like words, voices, many voices, clipped, gargling, but nothing I could understand, nothing like anything I knew. All of this was within a blackness that had no light, no colour; it was all sensations, or the impression of a reality within my mind. I could feel it, I could see it and hear it, yet there was nothing there in the blackness when I opened and closed my eyes, again and again, trying to make them work to confirm what my brain was telling me was in the room.

Then there was nothing. Like an off switch. And then there was a hospital room. modern. Concealed lighting. And there was Edie, asleep in a high-backed chair facing me, her head lolling and an open book, face down, pages crumpled into the blanket over her knees.

I tried to move but couldn’t. I tried to speak but I couldn’t. I tried to feel my body. But. I. Could. Not.

After a time, Doctor Luke appeared through the curtain. He came close to me and leaned in, eyes bright grey, skin incredibly smooth. “Hello Matt,” he whispered quietly. I could hear him perfectly. Then he turned, because Edie had woken up. They spoke about me, he reassured her that all was fine, but as predicted, as warned, as had been very carefully explained, the procedure had left me with almost no functional capacity. They were unsure if I could even hear or see. This was to be expected. The scan showed that some damaged areas had been removed. This was good. Blood tests were fine. I was otherwise in good health. She shouldn’t fear. I was in no pain. I was safe.

She came over to me, tears and smiles and a fiercely gentle hug and “I love you Mattie,” over and over again, but I couldn’t respond.

“Will he be ok? Will he get better?” she asked, without turning away from me.

“We have every hope,” the Doctor said, “but you will have to bring him to Omnimage every week, for the treatments. Until all the sessions are done.”

And so she did.

Well, she would, wouldn’t she?

To read Part I Click here although, you’ve ruined it for yourself if you have not read Part I first. Sub optimal.

© Nick Winney 2024.