incomplete. It's not actually a medical file, like you would get from the hospital. It's more like a one-page summary that somebody typed out to send to us. And it is barely sufficient.”
“One page? I was in that hospital for weeks.”
“I know that. It’s just a summary of injuries. I know which of your ribs were broken, but I don’t know what drugs you were given for the pain.”
“Do you need to know that?”
She shakes her head. “Not necessarily, because you’re not being treated for addiction. But it’s not right. A request for medical records should never have been answered with this half-assed information. As for your head, it only says that the patient was confused, due to a probable head injury.”
I snort. “Wow. So forthcoming.”
“Right.” She chews her lip again, and I can tell we’re not done yet. “By comparison, the file included much more information about your academic history, including a transcript of your first semester grades. Nice work, by the way, all A’s.”
“Thank you. I didn’t take any of those exams, but I did everything else. That’s why I lawyered up in the first place, to get the credits.”
She looks down at a note on her pad. “You took chemistry, an intro to psych, a math class, a course on Chaucer, and Spanish. You got credit for courses you don't remember taking.”
“They couldn’t have predicted my memory loss at the time,” I point out.
“Right. That's why it didn't seem strange to me the first time I read it.”
“And now it does?”
She frowns, and I feel a tingle of awareness at the back of my neck. “A month or so ago, you and I got off on a tangent about liminality in The Canterbury Tales.”
I chuckle. “Sure, yeah. It’s more fun to talk about Chaucer than about myself.”
“Right.” She smiles. “When’s the first time you read Chaucer?”
“Like, any of it?” I ask. “I have no idea.”
“Did you read The Canterbury Tales in high school?”
I’m sweating now and I don’t even know why. “Those stories are everywhere. They’re referenced in a million other works of literature.”
“Uh huh. But you can quote from “The Knight’s Tale” in Middle English.”
It’s starting to hit me what Lenore is saying. “You think I remember some of that class.”
“You remember Chaucer,” she says carefully. “But not sitting in the class.”
“Right,” I agree. “Or the professor’s name. Yeah. Okay, that's weird. Head injuries are weird.”
“Yours is especially weird,” she says.
“In what way?” I demand.
She puts her elbows on the desk and then puts her head in her hands. “Rickie, I don't have any medical experience with TBI. So I did a bunch of reading this weekend, and I couldn't find a single TBI case with memory issues that are similar to yours, where so much material is retained so perfectly.”
“There are other cases. Like that CEO who slipped in the bathroom and lost his entire life’s memories.”
“I read about him,” she says quietly. “His brain scan revealed a loss of blood flow to the right temporal lobe.”
That’s true. And yet my brain scan showed no abnormalities like his. “That man also had learning issues after his accident. Difficulty forming new memories. I didn’t.”
Lenore nods calmly.
Nothing inside me is calm. Because I know what Lenore is trying to imply. “You think I don't have a TBI anymore.”
“That’s one explanation,” she says with deliberate care.
And I realize it’s even creepier than that. “You think I never had one. You think my memory loss is only traumatic?” My voice gets high and weird. “Like…a dissociative fugue. Wh-what is the new term for that?” Then I answer my own question. “Dissociative psychogenic amnesia.” My heart pounds, and I hear a rushing sound in my ears.
“That’s an extreme interpretation,” she says. “That brain fog you suffered after the accident sounds very much like a concussion.”
“But that went away in weeks.”
She watches me, and waits.
Bile climbs up my throat. I might actually vomit. When did this office get so small? I stand up and quickly unlatch Lenore’s window, and roll it open to the summer air. I stick my head outside and breathe. The sight of the green lawn below us makes me feel a little calmer.
Just breathe, I remind myself. I haven’t had a panic attack in a long time. Months. And now I’m on panic attack number two in two days.
Panic attacks, by the way, are a very rare symptom of TBI.
What if I never had a TBI?
When I turn back to look at Lenore, her eyes are worried.