Tadhg

When I open my eyes, they feel crusted. I must've been out for a while. I've been waking up on and off for days now. Some of the time, I'm awake for an hour or two. Other days, I swim in and out of consciousness never really feeling coherent.

I'm not sure what's going on, but at some point I think I heard the doctor and nurse speaking about seizures. I try to make a mental note to ask about them, though admittedly, I feel fuzzy in my head.

I rub my right eye with my hand. The sheets feel scratchy beneath my leg and I can smell the bleach they used to wash them. A thin green blanket is draped across my body.

I look around the room and see an American flag hanging from the ceiling in front of me. There are other soldiers in beds next to me on my right.

I smell piss and copper.

The man to my right is missing the lower half of his arm. Realizing this, panic overtakes me as I look down to see my own limbs. I let out a sigh of relief when I recognize my own arm and leg still intact. Thank goodness.

I close my eyes and yawn. Shit. There was something I meant to remember. What the hell was I just thinking about? Damn it, I can't remember. It was important, though, I need to remember.

I look around and see a window at the far end of the room. My concern about remembering something important floats away. I would love to get up and go look out that window. I wonder if-

When a nurse asks me how I feel I jump. Where the hell is her voice coming from?

I look around again, but I still don't see her. Alarmingly, she continues speaking to me. "Do you know your name? Can you tell me what year it is?"

What is going on?

All of a sudden, the nurse appears in front of me. "Mr. MacCrithein, can you hear me?" She asks.

"Why were you hiding from me?" I ask her. "What happened? Where am I?"

"Take it easy. You're in the hospital," she starts to explain. "What do you remember? Can you tell me your name?"

"Tadhg. My name is Tadhg," I reply, trying to understand what's going on.

"I don't know. I don't remember anything after breakfast. I was eating with my cousin, Walker, in the mess. After that, I can't remember. What's going on?"

I start to sit up and feel a presence on the side of my body. "Shit! What's that? Who's touching me?" I yell, sitting up awkwardly.

I try to look around and see who it is, but don't see anyone.

"There's no one there, Mr. MacCrithein. It's just us-"

"No, you're lying," I tell her, shaking my head. "I can feel him. He's here."

"What're you talking about?" she says, walking out of my line of sight.

"Where did you go? Nurse? Come back!" I holler, trying to get her to return. I do my best to sit up straight, to see if I can find her, when I feel a presence on my body again.

"Get off me! Let go!" I holler. "Who's there?"

The nurse runs back into my sight. "Mr. MacCrithein, I'm right here."

"Why did you leave? Can't you see what's going on?" I ask, pissed off that she disappeared on me, and then worse, snuck up on me again. What's wrong with this nurse?

"Mr. MacCrithein," she says, trying to calm me. "Give me a minute. I'm going to go get Dr. Smithers. Hold on. I'll be right back."

Before I can protest, she takes off down the hall. A few minutes later a marine wearing glasses and a white jacket, sporting jet black hair cut close to the skin, comes over to me. "Ok, let's see what's going on, Sir. Give me a minute to look over your notes."

He then starts to go through the process of examining me while talking. It's a move that any doctor knows how to do. Multi-tasking at its finest. The quick, successive movements are a little disorienting to me, however.

"Someone grabbed me," I start to explain. "I can still feel them. In fact, I-"

"There's no one there, son," the doctor tells me, looking up from the laptop where he has my electronic chart open. "The only person beside you is Sergeant Russeck and he's lost his leg; he can't get up from bed to touch you. He didn't-"

"No, no, you're wrong," I stammer, cutting him off. "And what're you talking about? The only person in the room with me is that guy behind you and he's missing part of his arm, not his leg."

The doctor and nurse share a look between them and he hands her his laptop.

The doctor explains that he's going to complete some neurological tests on me. During them I can see him exchange glances with the nurse. They're making faces at one another but I can't figure out what they're thinking.

"Soldier, we're going to have to run some more tests," he explains.

"What? Why? I feel fine," I protest. "What about whoever is hovering next to me?"

"Listen to me," he starts to say slowly, taking off his spectacles. "I'm concerned you may be suffering from hemi-spatial neglect as a result of your injuries. We're going to have to run a lot more tests before we can be sure. First, however, let me reassure you about something."

I look up at his face, trying to keep eye contact, but I'm feeling distracted. I catch a fan spinning in the room behind the physician and get lost in the blades for a second. When I hear someone call my name, I blink and refocus on the person before me. He must be a doctor. He's wearing a white coat and is looking at me with an expression I can't read.

"Mr. MacCrithein," he says, pulling out a penlight and shining it into my pupils. "Can you hear me, son?"

I nod my head yes and try to understand him.

"What were you saying?" I ask. I notice a nurse moving closer to the doctor. She hands him a small laptop. I wonder where she came from. Was she here the whole time?

I realize the doctor is still speaking to me and I turn my head back to him, catching a few of his last words.

"Hemi-spatial what? Did you say, 'neglect'? What does that mean?" I ask tentatively. I'm starting to feel tired. I should probably listen to the doctor a little more, but the itchiness of these sheets is irritating my skin.

"Hemi-Spatial Neglect," the doctor tries again. "It's sometimes referred to as Left Neglect Syndrome, or with additional symptoms, even Right-Hemisphere Syndrome," he continues.

"When you were working with the AT-4 the other day you suffered a traumatic brain injury. The right hemisphere, or right side, of your brain was damaged. Do you understand what I've said to you so far?"

I nod my head yes, hoping he'll go on. I feel fine. What he's saying can't be true. I'd know it, wouldn't I, if something was wrong? But, I don't feel any different. I feel perfectly fine. Well, maybe a little dizzy, but otherwise, ok. The doctor continues, asking the nurse to record some things as he continues examining me.

The doctor's now at the bottom of my bed moving his hands along my right lower leg and foot. "Can you feel this, son?"

"Yes, of course," I respond. "Why? Is that bad?"

"No, not at all. It's good, in fact," he replies. But then the Doctor leaves. Or, at least he must have.

"Can you feel this?" I hear him ask. There's a sensation on my body that I can't describe but it doesn't feel like it belongs to me.

"Mr. MacCrithein, can you feel this?" the doctor asks again.

"Where are you?" I ask him. "Who's doing that? What's going on?"

"How about this, son?" I hear him, closer to me now. "Can you feel this?"

"What're you doing?" I ask frantically. "What's going on?"

Within seconds the doctor comes back into my line of sight. He whispers something to the nurse and she begins to type things into the laptop, never once looking up at me.

"Nurse Himey," the doctor instructs her. "Set up a consult with Neuro. Mr. MacCrithein needs to see them right away."

I'm two seconds away from losing my shit if this man doesn't start explaining to me what's going on. I can still feel someone nearby and it's freaking me out.

Suddenly, the nurse leaves the room and the doctor grabs a nearby plastic chair. He pulls it up next to my bed so that we're at eye level.

"Based on my exam," he explains. "I do think we're seeing some definite indicators of Neglect Syndrome, Mr. MacCrithein. We're going to send you for further testing but I think that will only confirm my suspicions."

"Doctor, what is this?" I plead. "You have to tell me."

As we talk I learn that neglect syndrome is something that usually occurs to people who've a stroke, or in cases like my own, to people who suffer brain injuries. Often with neglect syndrome the brain is damaged on the right side.

Each half of our body is controlled by the opposite side of the brain. This means that if an injury happens on the right side of the brain, the result will be problems with the left side of the body.

For my case whatever happened during the firing of the AT-4 my right brain hemisphere was damaged.

"But doctor," I try to explain to him. "I feel fine. I don't feel any problems with my-"

"Son, let me demonstrate something to you," he says, cutting me off. "Here, do you feel that?" He reaches forward and pinches my right arm.

"Ouch," I respond, rubbing my arm with my hand. "Yeah."

"Ok," he says, leaning forward again. He's almost laying across my body to reach something I can't see. "Now, how about this?"

I feel a presence again but can't make out what happened. It hurt but, something doesn't feel right...it's like I'm feeling someone else's pain.

"What did you just do?" I ask the physician. Before he can answer, however, I notice there's a breeze blowing against the flag hanging above our beds. I feel a little hot and hope the air decides to shift my way soon. I wonder how the guys are today. It's always so hot and-

"Mr. MacCrithein?"

Oh, yeah. The doctor.

I return my focus to Dr...wait, what's his name again?

"What did you say your name was?" I ask him.

The doctor takes a deep breath and sits back in his seat. "Dr. Smithers," he replies slowly.

"We were just talking about what happened to your brain, Tadhg."

"We were?" I ask, confused. How can that be? I don't remember even meeting this man in front of me. Yet he's saying we were in the middle of talking. Did he say something was wrong with my brain?

"Wait, did you say brain?" I ask, sitting up. The room starts to spin a little bit so I lean back down on my pillow.

"Yes, I did," he says to me. "Do you remember a few minutes ago when I was examining your leg and foot?" he asks, reaching out to touch my right side.

"You were examining me?" I ask him, surprised.

"I was," he says calmly. "Ok, let's start again. I'm going to get up and you tell me when you can't see me anymore, alright?"

I nod my head.

Dr. Smithers starts to examine my arm, chest, hips, leg and foot. Suddenly, however, he leaves the room.

Now why would he do that in the middle of examining me? I sit up to look for him and am rattled when I feel weird sensations on my body. Then I hear him speaking to me, right in my ear, and it makes me jump. I can hear him, but I can't see him. I turn my head to the right to look for him, but I don't see Dr. Smithers anywhere.

"Is this some kind of trick?" I ask out-loud. "What're you doing?"

Just as I finish my sentence I see the doctor come back into the room. "There you are. Why'd you leave?" I ask, frustrated. "I thought you were going to examine me."

"Son, I never left your bedside," he starts to say, but I cut him off.

"You sure as shit did," I interject, pointing an angry finger at him. "You left! You just-"

"I was here the whole time," the doctor continues as if I hadn't spoken. "You just didn't see me. Well, you did, but you didn't realize you did."

What is he talking about?

"Son, it's what I've been trying to tell you. It's the brain injury. You neglected to see me because I'd moved into your left line of sight. You felt my hands on your foot, leg, arm and hand, but couldn't associate it with me touching you. You're not conscious of your left side of your body. That presence you're feeling? That's your own arm and hand. That's your own leg and foot."

"What?" I ask, unconsciously shaking my head against what he's telling me, astounded and not understanding. "Are you telling me I'm blind on my left? But that doesn't make sense, I can still see---and I'm not paralyzed, I-"

"No, you're not paralyzed, Sir, nor are you blind."

"I don't understand," I tell him. I roll my eyes upward in frustration. "But you said-"

"You're not blind nor paralyzed, but part of your brain has been hurt. The right side of it is no longer doing what it's supposed to do. Your brain is supposed to be conscious of things on both sides of your body and in your line of sight, but it's not. You're only paying attention to things on your right side at the moment."

"But you said my right side is damaged. If that's true, how come everything on my right side feels fine?" I stutter, frustrated.

"I did. It is. Like I explained, though," he continues patiently. "When the right side of your brain is injured, your left side suffers. If it were the reverse, and your left hemisphere was injured, you'd be having trouble with the right side of your body."

I can feel a headache coming on and lie back on top of the pillows on my bed and close my eyes. This is all so confusing.

"Doctor," I ask him, sighing and opening my eyes. "If I have this condition, this Neglect Syndrome, shouldn't I know it? I don't feel sick. I'm not in any pain. I feel normal. I'm not sure if I believe what you're saying."

"I know," he says, patting my hand like I'm a child. I take it back and look at him, indignant. He sighs back at me.

"Your reaction is part of a complication of the condition; anosognosia. It means you have something wrong but can't perceive it. It's a common complication with Neglect Syndrome. You don't know you have a problem, even if everyone else does. In addition, I think your memory and concentration have also been affected; you seem to have trouble remembering things in the short-term, and in maintaining focus."

"No, I don't," I tell him. "I remember just fine. This is ridiculous. Why are you saying these things?"

How can I believe what this man is telling me? It doesn't seem right. He can't be right.

I think about Mrs. McKittrick. I wonder what she'd say about all of this. I smile slightly. She'd probably call the doctor a quack and tell him to get on with himself.

Then again, even Mrs. McKittrick would go to the doctor when things were bad enough. She may not have liked them, but she did respect their expertise when hers was exhausted.

Maybe I should listen to Dr. Smithers. Maybe he's right.

I'm just about to say something to the doctor when I notice a nurse come up from behind him. She whispers quietly in his ear and hands him a piece of paper. He thanks her for it.

When I look back at the doctor I tilt my head at him curiously.

"Who're you?" I ask him.

I never did remember to bring up the seizures.

_________

Resource for the YouTube video above:

Title: When An Injured Brain Ignores Half the World/HemiNeglect Syndrome

By: Everyday Elements

Published On: October 9, 2017