The other day I was in having an EEG (nothing wrong) and as they were cleaning the goop out of my hair they were attaching electrodes to the next patient, a Mrs. T. Now it was immediately obvious that Mrs. T wasn’t able to communicate through words but, every time the technician scrubbed her scalp too hard or started on the next step of the preparations Mrs. T would try to climb out of the chair. Since she wouldn’t stay put the technicians had to tie her down to prevent her from plopping forward onto the floor. I’m not sure how much of the whole procedure Mrs. T was actually able to understand but it must be terrifying finding yourself in a situation that you don’t understand without a full comprehension of why this is happening.

That brings me to my little brother (who is actually now taller than me). As a child my brother had a variety of health problems which required frequent blood tests. One day I got dragged into going with him and my Mom to the doctors office where he was scheduled to have one injection or another. When we got to the parking lot my then six-year-old brother kindly offered to go and buy the ticket from the parking machine. As soon as he had the money in hand my brother took off waving the five dollar bill and shouting “Taxi! Taxi!”. After that, my brother instituted a system, he made sure that my Mom never told him about blood tests until the very last moment; things worked much better that way.

Right now life kind of seems like a bit of Mrs. T and a bit of my brother. A lot of things are going on and I don’t understand what they mean, which makes them kinda scary. On the other hand, facing an uncertain future is actually kind of reassuring.