Coma Girl: part 1 Read Online Free Page A

with instruments ranging from brushes to sharp probes to see if I responded, ditto for heat and cold. I didn’t feel anything at all, but I hoped my body was sending signals to another part of my brain that was responding, and I just didn’t know about it yet. I was also subjected to a series of sounds ranging from soft buzzing to shrill sirens. And finally, scents of evergreen and ammonia and other chemical smells I didn’t recognize were passed close to my nose. If I ever wake up, I’m going to suggest they add the scent of a cheeseburger to the lineup.
    By the time they had wheeled me back to my room where my family waited, I was pretty sure I had failed the brainwave tests, and I was terrified of what that might mean. Would they remove my feeding tube? I had filled out a healthcare directive stating I didn’t want to be kept alive by artificial means. What I should’ve checked on the form was the box for “Don’t ever give up on me.”
    So if the time came for my family to order me to be starved to death, I had only myself to blame.
    “What are the results of the tests?” Sidney asked. She was taking the role of my spokesperson seriously.
    “Let’s start with the good news,” Dr. Tyson began. “Marigold is breathing on her own, and all her organs seem to be functioning well.”
    “Except for her brain,” my mother prompted.
    “Yes,” the doctor agreed. “But today’s tests indicated there is still substantial brainwave activity.”
    “Oh, thank God,” my mother said.
    “And Marigold exhibits localized response to pain, which is good… but not great.”
    “So she can feel pain?” my dad asked.
    “Your daughter had an involuntary, localized response to pain. What we’re hoping for is a more general response—a full-body response—to pain stimuli. That tells us more parts of the brain are communicating.”
    “I’m confused,” my mother said. “Marigold is in pain, or she’s not in pain?”
    “The test involved external stimulus… we don’t believe she’s in pain on an ongoing basis.”
    “But you don’t know?” my dad asked.
    “We can’t say for certain.”
    Sidney made a frustrated noise. “Doctor, is my sister going to wake up?”
    “We just don’t know. The brain activity isn’t as vigorous as I had hoped, but there’s still some swelling from the injury she sustained, so we won’t know for sure until it’s completely healed.”
    “And how long might that take?” my dad asked.
    “Again, we don’t know. You’re going to have to be patient. Meanwhile, when you talk to Marigold, you might try talking about childhood routines and memories.”
    “Why?” my mother asked.
    “It has to do with how the brain establishes and stores new and recent memories. It takes time for new memories to be recorded and hard-wired into the brain. Older memories are sometimes easier to recall simply because we’ve recalled them more often.”
    So that explained why I couldn’t remember the events around the accident yet… and if my brain had been traumatized during the “recording” of the accident, maybe I never would.
    “With that in mind,” the doctor continued, “you might try calling to Marigold to wake her up the way you did when she was little.”
    “Okay,” my mom said, although I had a feeling she would not want to reenact her trips to the bottom of the stairs where she would yell, “Marigold, get up already! Don’t make me come up there!”
    My poor detached family… the attorney had charged them with learning about my current life, and now the doctor wanted them to relive my childhood, too.
     

July 9, Saturday
     
    I SMELLED MY ROOMMATE Roberta Hazzard before she announced her arrival. Roberta works at a bakery, so the scents of cinnamon and cocoa cling to her like DNA. I think this adds to her sex appeal because despite the fact that Roberta is a large woman, she has her pick of men. They literally follow her home. I kid you not—there have been times when I’ve