The Opposite of Music (17 page)
Read The Opposite of Music Online
Authors: Janet Ruth Young
In the parking lot, when Mom searches her purse for her car keys, her hand is shaking. I secure Dad gently in front, but once in the backseat, I slam my door loud enough to echo off pewter walls.
“Not now, Billy.”
“You know what I'm going to say then, don't you?”
“Nothing, Billy. Not a word until we get home.”
“I didn't like him,” Dad says.
Back at the house, I escort Dad inside while Mom waits in the driveway. She'll be leaving again to get Linda.
“I'm not closing off my options, Billy,” she says when I come back out. “We may want to continue with him. I checked with someone I know at the college. He has a very good reputation.”
“You can't put Dad in the hands of a nut job!”
“Don't be such an alarmist. So he's a little eccentric. A lot of brilliant people are. He probably puts all his effort into keeping up with research and hasn't developed good interpersonal skills. In the academic world, at least, that's fairly typical.”
“This isn't the academic worldâhe's supposed to be a doctor! You hated him yourself. Why are you making excuses for him? What about being a good consumer, like you always told us to be? What about shopping around?”
“Sometimesâ” The lady next door is just getting home from work. Mom waves. “Would you keep your voice down, please?”
“You didn't think he was any good. You thought he was full of it. You wanted to turn around and walk out, the same as I did.”
“Maybe, but I restrained myself. He has a very good reputation. We have to put our personal preferences aside. It's just something that we have to overlook.”
“He treated Dad like he wasn't even a person. Like he was a prisoner or something. Like he had no will. He treated us like we were less than human. People like that should never be given any kind of power.”
“It's irrelevant.”
“Irrelevant?”
“So he's rude to the patients. So what? Does that really make any difference? It's like saying he can't do a good job because he's bald.”
“He
is
bald. And obtuse andâ”
Mom reaches for the handle of the car door. “Listen, Billy. When I was in grad school, there was a professor in the biology department that no one could stand to be in the same room with. He smelled bad, he insulted the other professors, and he distributed fliers saying the women's studies department should be cut because it wasn't a real subject. But you know what? He contributed to the discovery of an oncogene. The first step toward a cure for cancer. How many people do you think he helped?”
“But did any of the people with cancer ever have to meet him? I don't think so. This guy is a
psychiatrist
, for Christ's sake. He's supposed to know how to act around people.”
“We can find someone else to be nice to us. We can
pay
someone to be nice to us. But we can pay
him
to do what he does.”
The curtains move and Dad looks out at us. I hold up my finger to say “one minute.”
“You'd better go in,” Mom says.
“Well, I'm glad I'm not the one paying the bills. He's not getting one cent of my money.”
Mom drops her head and rests both gloves on the car hood, as if she's watching her reflection, except that the car is really dirty. “Maybe I shouldn't have brought you with us,” Mom says. “I thought you might be up to taking notes.”
Not bring me? If I hadn't been there, who knows what might have happened? Dad might not have come home. He could be watching the world through iron bars right now.
“Now everything is getting too complicated,” Mom says as if I'm not there. “I'm the only one who can decide.”
“How will you decide? Everything we've tried so far has been a disaster. The other day I was trying to remember what Dad was like before he got sick, and you know what? I can't even remember. I can't remember my own father and he's not even dead, he's living right here in the house and sleeping down the hall.”
“Go in. I'll decide. I'll look into it, and I'll decide.”
I hold up my notebook. “We got that brochure, right?”
“That's right. Where's the brochure?”
- The wife of a former governor and onetime presidential hopeful calls the results of her regular ECT program “wonderful.”
- The chairman of psychiatry at a prestigious medical school says, “Most people today in patient surveys say it's no worse than going to a dentist.”
For nearly seventy years, electroconvulsive therapy has been used to restore depressed patients to health. What can ECT do for you?
- Restore
your zest for life - Revive
your appetite and help you maintain a healthy weight - Release
you from insomnia so you enjoy a good night's rest - Return
your performance level at school or job, honing your “competitive edge”
Are you a candidate for ECT? Ask your doctor, and begin to harness the healing power of electroconvulsive therapy now.
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Mom says.
Now it's Mom who paces the house, trying to decide whether to go ahead with the treatments. She has already told Mieux that she will go forward, and Dad has had all the necessary prep work done. But she has misgivings. She carries the appointment card for Dad's first treatment. She folds and unfolds it so many times that it turns silky.
“Listen to yourself,” I tell her. “You obviously have doubts. Why do you have doubts? Because you know he's a quack. He shouldn't be practicing medicine. He wouldn't care if Dad died in his office, as long as it didn't leave a mark on the furniture. You should have told him no in the first place.”
Linda agrees. “Too risky,” she says. “The things we did before, they didn't work, but at least they were safe.”
“It's just a piece of paper,” Mom says. “We can cancel at any time. We can just fail to show up, the way we did with Fritz. The situation only
seems
to be out of our control, see? They need to act like they're in charge, but
we're
the ones who are in control. We're the ones they need to show up.”
Someone approaches the bike rack behind the library as I'm going in the entrance. He hovers near Triumph.
“My bike,” I boom in my strongest voice, retracing my steps.
A middle-aged guy stands up. He's a little younger than my father, and he's wearing a peacoat with a plaid muffler.
“Beautiful bike. English, isn't it?”
“Yep.” With the hand holding my keys, I point to a plate on the top tube that says
MADE IN ENGLAND
.
“I always wanted one of these. How does it ride?”
“Three years with no problems. And a lot of decades before that.”
“They're a little heavy on the hills, aren't they? Have you considered putting a larger cog in the back?”
“I don't mind working up a sweat on the hills once in a while. I'm trying to keep it as intact as possible. I could use a springier seat, too, with all the potholes, but I just like the looks of this one.” I wait for him to step away, but he doesn't go.
“It's in beautiful condition,” he says, running his hand over the handlebars. “Have you ever thought of selling?”
“No, I haven't.” That sounds ruder than I intended. “Sir, this is my primary mode of transportation.”
“Well, I wouldn't want you to lose your transportation. I would give you enough to get another decent bike. How about three hundred dollars?”
“It's not worth that much.”
“Then why don't you take the money?”
“It's not worth that to anyone else, I mean.”
“How about four hundred, then?”
“Are you crazy? You can find five of them for that much on the Internet.”
“Why is this bike so special to you?”
“It's practically my first bike. It feels like that, anyway. I fixed it up myselfâ¦. My father and I did.” A light snow is falling, and I want to be inside.
“Well, it's really just what I'm looking for. And I have been looking on the Internet. Will you take my card, in case you change your mind?”
I wave the card away and go upstairs. Once inside the door I check back to see if the guy has his grubby hands on my frame again, but he's walking to his car. Four hundred dollars! Out of nowhere. It almost seemed like one of those situations they warn you against, when someone pretends to share your enthusiasms or offers to do you a big favor, and they're really a sexual predator attempting to get somewhere with you. The card and everything. Or perhaps he was the devil incarnate. He did seem to genuinely like the bike, though.
I go inside and find a computer carrel in the corner of the third floor, where I'm least likely to encounter other students from my school. I pass two guys a year older than meâ“It's all right,” one guy says, “it's just Bob.”âwho seem to be participating in a chat room. “Say you're a 40DD,” one of them whispers to the other.
Four hundred dollars. I don't know whether I should tell Mom and Dad. On the one hand, it's a lot of money that perhaps we could use (I actually know very little about our financial situation), but on the other hand, I have no intention of selling. We do, after all, need my bike. With Dad out of commission, it's our second car. It allows me to do important errands like this. With the saddlebags, I could conceivably do grocery runs as well. Maybe I should offer to do something for the Brooksbie once in a while. Yes, I am sure they would not want me to sell the bike.
Tuning out the guys in the nearby carrel, I do a keyword search on the words “electroconvulsive therapy.” The search brings up several websites with pleasant and soothing names like Personal Wellness, Web MD, Family Doctor, and the National Institutes for Health. I print up a page of questions and answers from Family Doctor.
What conditions does electroconvulsive therapy treat?
Electroconvulsive therapy (also called ECT) may help people who have the following conditions:
- Severe depression with insomnia (trouble sleeping), weight change, feelings of hopelessness or guilt, and thoughts of suicide (hurting or killing yourself) or homicide (hurting or killing someone else).
- Severe depression that does not respond to antidepressants (medicines used to treat depression) or counseling.
- Severe depression in patients who can't take antidepressants.
- Severe mania that does not respond to medicines. Symptoms of severe mania may include talking too much, insomnia, weight loss or impulsive behavior.
How does ECT work?
It is believed that ECT works by using an electrical shock to cause a seizure (a short period of irregular brain activity). This seizure releases many chemicals in the brain. These chemicals, called neurotransmitters, deliver messages from one brain cell to another. The release of these chemicals makes the brain cells work better. A person's mood will improve when his or her brain cells and chemical messengers work better.
What steps are taken to prepare a person for ECT treatment?
First, a doctor will do a physical exam to make sure you're physically able to handle the treatment. If you are, you will meet with an anesthesiologist, a doctor who specializes in giving anesthesia. Anesthesia is when medicine is used to put you in a sleeplike state. The anesthesiologist will examine your heart and lungs to see if it is safe for you to have anesthesia. You may need to have some blood tests and an electrocardiogram (a test showing the rhythm of your heart) before your first ECT treatment.
How are the ECT treatments given?
ECT may be given during a hospital stay, or a person can go to a hospital just for the treatment and then go home. ECT is given up to 3 times a week. Usually no more than 12 treatments are needed. Treatment is given by a psychiatrist.
Before each treatment, an intravenous (IV) line will be started so medicine can be put directly into your blood. You will be given an anesthetic (medicine to put you into a sleeplike state) and a medicine to relax your muscles. Your heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing will be watched closely. After you are asleep, an electrical shock will be applied to your head. The shock will last only 1 or 2 seconds and will make your brain have a seizure. This seizure is controlled by medicines so that your body doesn't move when you have the seizure.
You will wake up within 5 to 10 minutes after the treatment and will be taken to a recovery room to be watched. When you are fully awake, you can eat and drink, get dressed, and return to your hospital room or go home.
What are some side effects of ECT?
Side effects may result from the anesthesia, the ECT treatment, or both. Common side effects include temporary short-term memory loss, nausea, muscle aches, and headache. Some people may have longer-lasting problems with memory after ECT. Sometimes a person's blood pressure or heart rhythm changes. If these changes occur, they are carefully watched during the ECT treatments and are immediately treated.
What happens after all of the ECT treatments are done?
After you have finished all of your ECT treatments, you will probably be started on an antidepressant medicine. It is important for you to keep taking this medicine the way your doctor tells you to so that you won't become depressed again.
I ride home standing on the pedals instead of sitting on the seat. I take the route that allows me to coast down long hills. Triumph, it's going to be all right!
At home, Mom is checking the maintenance bills for Brooksbie while Dad allows Linda to give him a cucumber facial. I drop the printouts on Mom's lap and she reads them quickly, her lips moving at certain key words. I was surprised that the treatments didn't sound that bad. It looks like Mom might be right to go ahead, although I would never tell her so. When she's done, she chucks me on the head and holds up the appointment slip like it's a winning lottery ticket.
