Read Against Medical Advice Online
Authors: James Patterson
Against Medical Advice (4 page)
Danger Everywhere
I’M MAKING IT very hard for my mother to drive. We’re coming home from the YMCA, where she’s taken me to play basketball with some kids like me who don’t have much else to do or other kids to play with.
We’re on a narrow country road, and the traffic is bad. My mother is trying to make a left turn at an intersection, but there’s another car coming at us, and she has to decide if she can make it in time.
Already on this ride I’ve been sticking my head out the window and also making silly faces in the rearview mirror, like I used to do in my bathroom. This is getting my mother upset, but not as upset as when I need to
open my door while the car is moving.
The reason I’m so wild today may be the new medicine I’m on. I’m getting anxious about starting third grade only a few weeks from now, so my doctor is trying a new drug called Haldol. This one was made for people with problems such as schizophrenia and big mood changes.
The Haldol is already having a bad effect, making me do strange, risky things — like now, when we’re driving.
Just as my mother is about to turn left, I have an urge to do something new that is unexpectedly dangerous. I suddenly touch the steering wheel and push it to the right.
When my mother feels the wheel turning out of her control, she pushes my hand away.
“Cory, you could cause an accident!”
This makes me want to touch the wheel even more, but I just tap it in a teasing, slightly threatening way.
All the while, an oncoming car is getting closer. By now I’ve distracted my mother so much that when she faces the road again, she has to make a faster decision.
She steps on the gas pedal, but I can see she’s so upset, she’s made a mistake. The car is coming at us too fast. We’re not going to get out of the way in time, and it’s too late to stop.
“Mom!” I call out. “Mom! Mom!”
My mother tries to speed up, but the oncoming car is right next to us. It slides sideways as the driver hits the brakes and tries to steer around us.
A thunderous crash rocks our car. It lifts the front end right off the ground. Suddenly I’m flying forward. My head slams hard into the windshield with a loud crunching sound. I see a blinding white flash, then little lights sparkle in my eyes.
“Mom?”
I cry out in pain and confusion.
WHEN EVERYTHING STOPS moving, there’s smoke spewing from the engine of the car that hit us, blowing crazily over the hood. A young woman pries open the door and steps out, crying and stumbling over her feet.
I’m dizzy from the hit against the windshield. I look over at my mother to see how she is.
Her head is resting on the steering wheel. I think she’s hurt very badly, and I know it’s because of me. But then she pushes herself back up and lets out a breath. She looks at me in wonder, then at the windshield. She sees the broken glass.
“Cory, are you all right?” she asks. I can tell she’s very afraid. I’ve never loved her more than I do right now. She’s so precious to me.
“I guess so,” I say, trying to be brave.
“Does your head hurt?”
She touches a large swelling on my forehead that I hadn’t noticed. Now I can feel it pulsing, but there’s no pain yet and it’s not bleeding.
“I don’t know why the air bags didn’t go off to keep you away from the windshield,” Mom says.
And I don’t know why I needed to touch the steering wheel.
Father, and Other F Words
WHEN THE PHONE RINGS, I look away from the video game and listen to hear who’s calling. I hope that my mother will shout my name and tell me that it’s a friend who wants to play — but, as usual, it isn’t. Fourth graders are pretty much staying away from me nowadays. My tics are driving me and everyone else crazy.
Even Jessie is keeping her distance, and we’re usually pretty close. A few days ago, I was in the front seat of our car and suddenly hurled myself over the backrest and landed on top of her. I hurt her so much that she screamed in pain. I feel so bad when I have to do things like that to her. Jessie used to try to calm me down and hug me when I got restless, but now there are too many things I do that threaten her, and she can’t trust me anymore.
My father is spending more time with me, probably to make up for my not having any friends.
One afternoon, my father and I are in the basement putting together a new model car with a real gas engine. The car has hundreds of tiny parts, and he’s helping me find one that’s missing. After looking for a while, I’m suddenly aware of how close our heads are. The fact that they’re almost touching gives me an urge to do something wild and inappropriate, like spit in his face.
Something is telling me to ruin our good time.
Out of nowhere the F word flies into my mind. It’s the worst word I can say, like the time I wrote
SHIT
on the blackboard at school. I try hard to hold back from saying it, but when the urge becomes overpowering, I lose the fight. Only it comes out as
fu fu fu fu fu,
as though I’m stuttering.
My father knows right away what I’m almost saying.
“What’s that about?” he wants to know with a disappointed expression.
“I’m not sure. It just came out.”
“Where did you hear that word?”
“Nowhere . . . I guess.”
He starts to tell me not to do it anymore but then stops short. He knows the first rule: telling me not to do something only makes me want to do it more.
“Sorry, Dad. Sorry. Sorry, Dad.”
“That’s okay, don’t worry about it,” he says. Shifting topics, he goes on, “Have you seen anything that looks like this?” He points to a picture of a part in the car instructions.
“Fu fu fu fu fu,” I answer.
“I bet it’s in here somewhere,” he says, ignoring the near curse and digging into a new pile of loose screws and plastic pieces.
I guess I’m lucky that I almost never feel the urge to curse in front of people like some kids do, and that when I start to, I can usually control it. If you have to curse out loud, you can’t be in a regular classroom or go to the movies or restaurants because people don’t understand. Just like when I give people the bird. No matter how many times my mother or father explains that I can’t help it, they don’t believe it.
My father’s distractions help me forget the F word, and we spend a happy time putting most of the car together.
“How’d you get so good at this?” he says when we’re done for the day.
“Dunno,” I answer proudly.
But I do. I can spend hours at a time doing something I love because it becomes an obsession. Sometimes obsessions can work for you.
In bed that night, I can feel the medicine helping my mind shut down. I think about what a mostly good day I had with my father, and then I remember the one thing that wasn’t so good.
Fu fu fu fu fu,
I say softly into the darkness.
Fu fu fu fu fu.
I don’t think this is a regular tic. It’s more like a thought I have to act on. Or maybe that’s the same thing. And I suddenly recall where I first got the idea of having to say bad things and having no control over it.
Our family had recently watched a comedy that made fun of different kinds of people with terrible conditions. One was a woman who kept cursing out loud, and she explained that it was because she had Tourette’s syndrome. I remember being so surprised.
“Does Tourette’s make people say bad words?” I whispered to my father.
He looked really angry, but not at me.
“No, this is a bad movie, Cory. They make fun of people who can’t help themselves, and they shouldn’t.”
And that was the way I learned about the cursing tic. It’s called
coprolalia.
I go to sleep wondering why grown-ups would want to make a movie that pokes fun at people who can’t help themselves. And I wonder if they still would if there was somebody in their own family like me.
When Good Turns Bad
IT FEELS STRANGE and almost wrong to see the hallways so empty and silent at this time of day in such a big school.
I’m late for class because the extra Benadryl I needed to take last night made me oversleep. It’s the end of fourth grade, and it’s getting harder to stay in school for the whole day, but I want to try. Yesterday I was twitching and jumping around so much that my shirt was soaking wet by sixth period.
On the way to class, I see three girls around my age whom I haven’t noticed before. They use the word
like
about ten times in five seconds.
And I, like, go with him, and, like, oh my God! That’s, like, so awesome.
I wonder — do they have tics? Is saying
like
really a tic? If so, I know an awful lot of other kids who have it.
As they pass by me, I bend at the waist and jerk my head to one side. The girls stop their conversation and smile as they go by, but after they’re farther down the hall, I can hear them giggling. I don’t know if it’s because of me or something else.
Still, I feel pretty good about being in school today. I don’t know if it’s my new medicine or not. I’ve been completely off Haldol for a while, and Dr. Pressler has replaced it with Cogentin. This is yet another medicine made for something else, in this case for people with Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s sufferers have problems with the way their bodies move, so I guess that’s a good reason to try it on me.
Dr. Pressler will do anything to help. She’s very disappointed that she hasn’t found a great medicine for me like she has for hundreds of other children.
So far Cogentin is better than Haldol. Or maybe it’s just that the Haldol is wearing off. I never know. A lot of my wild behavior has stopped, especially the feeling that I might need to curse. Haldol gave me an unbelievable appetite. Now my body is doing some new things. I guess that could just be a sign of getting worse as I get older.
The real problem is that it’s hard to know what’s causing what, with everything going on at the same time. There are all the different medicines with different doses and combinations, and the time of year. Spring usually seems to be the worst. Then there is the stress of school and of the way Tourette’s always changes, getting worse, then better, then worse again. It’s called
waxing and waning.
With all this, none of my doctors have been able to figure out precisely what’s going on, so whenever they prescribe a new medicine, it’s always just a guess.
The best thing about school this year is my teacher, Mrs. Erlanger. She never ever lets the other kids make fun of me. She’s explained to them that just because my body moves, it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me, and that it’s no big deal.
Today I promise to be extra good in class for her. Today I’m going to be a “Tourette’s angel.”
BY THE END OF THE MORNING, things are going well. Mrs. Erlanger has called on me almost every time I’ve raised my hand. She praises me a lot and never lets my ticcing bother her. She tells my mother that she loves the way I always contribute in class. I can’t tell you how great that makes me feel — like I’m a regular kid.
Things change at lunch.
I see my two old neighborhood friends sitting alone at a table, and there’s an empty seat next to them. I sit down and say hi. They look at each other, then just get up and leave. They never say anything; they just take off. I feel so bad I can’t stand it. They go to sit with their other friends.
After that I don’t want to try to sit with anyone. Most of the time I eat alone anyway, except now and then I sit with William. He’s a nice kid who doesn’t seem to have friends either. William has learning disabilities.
Eating by myself isn’t that terrible, mainly because I love the food my mother packs for me. Today my lunch box is stuffed with all my favorites — fruit salad, cookies, and sandwiches my mother makes herself.
Back in class, Mrs. Erlanger is slowly reciting a poem for us and wants us to print it out as she speaks, but I’m having trouble. The pencil is clumsy in my hand, and I need my words to be
exactly
on the blue line, not even a little above or below. I also need my letters to be
perfectly
formed, and since I can never get it right the first time, I have to erase and start over. I’m doing that so much today that I’ve made holes in my papers. I hate the sloppy holes so much.
Soon I’m so far behind that out of frustration I break my pencil in two and stop working. I’ve been breaking pencils in two all the time lately, at home and in school, even when I’m not using them to write. I don’t know why. I just do it.
To try and relax, I begin to drum my fingers on my desk. I drum out a series of beats over and over, so after a while it attracts attention.
Mrs. Erlanger looks up and sees that it’s me, then gives me a little smile and goes back to her reading.
One of the good things she’s done for me is to make me the class messenger. This is a job the other kids want since it gets them out of class for some free time. When Mrs. Erlanger sees that I’m getting a little out of control, she usually says,
I need someone to go to the office for me. Cory, would you mind?
So while everyone else continues studying, I get to leave before I disrupt the class any further, and I go chill out in the nurse’s office.
As I keep up my drumming, Mrs. Erlanger seems to be getting annoyed. I guess it can get on anyone’s nerves after a while. It even gets on mine.
I soon realize that I’m getting stuck on drumming, and I stuff my hand in my pocket to stop.
I’m trying so hard to be good.
I look around and I see a kid named Jerome grinning at me. He sits a few seats away and is one of the boys who likes to get me in trouble.
When I stop drumming, he makes a low chirping sound that I can hear but the teacher can’t. It’s similar to one of my throat tics, and thinking about it makes me start doing it, which is just what Jerome wants.
Soon I chirp loud enough for the other kids to hear, and I make a silly face so it looks like I’m doing it on purpose — the class clown again.
Now I’m chirping so much a bunch of the boys start to imitate me, and that does it for Mrs. Erlanger. She jumps out of her chair with an angry look I haven’t seen before.
“This is not funny. I need you
all
to be quiet. Do you understand?”
The room gets so quiet that I can hear somebody outside mowing a lawn. At first I’m relieved that the laughing has stopped, but then the silence gets to me and becomes its own problem. I need to do something to break it. I know this is a terrible time to make a noise, but that’s what the urge is all about.
Finally it gets so strong I can’t stop it. My throat makes another chirp, then another one, even louder.
The class holds its breath, waiting for Mrs. Erlanger’s next reaction.
“I think it would help if you could control that, Cory,” she says in a sharp, slightly strained voice.
I can’t believe it.
Are you asking me to stop?
She knows I can’t control it, and telling me to only increases my need to do it. I feel like I’ve suddenly been attacked by the only person in school I can trust.
The tension makes me chirp again, even louder, and now I’m stuck in a terrible cycle I can’t get out of.
“I think a time-out will do us all some good!” Mrs. Erlanger shouts over the noise. “Cory, why don’t you spend a few minutes outside in the hall?” she says, and points to the door.
Her order stuns me. I’m supposed to be a messenger when this happens, not punished. Everyone knows the hall is punishment. I’m confused and hurt,
really hurt.
I get up to leave and grab my book bag without looking at it, but the bag is open and all my books and papers spill around me on the floor. This starts another round of laughter from my classmates.
Nothing is making any sense. My favorite teacher is mad at me and she’s making me act worse. My classmates are provoking me into doing things they can make fun of. I’m lost and embarrassed and ticcing wildly. I’m so afraid, I can’t stand it.
Then I realize that another bad feeling is starting up inside of me.
I’m beginning to get angry. Very angry.