The Trouble With Sentiment

Chapter Nine

He ignored the next chime. The gifts had probably been meant for Harriet's elderly neighbor, Mrs. Tait. Hadn't she been due for a hip replacement?

A few taps of the keyboard later, Sherlock looked over at him. "I do believe I've underestimated the value of social networking."

"Oh God. Please tell me you haven't joined Facebook."

A snort. "Of course not. I used your account. It was difficult initially to locate anyone with a brain, but eventually a friend of a friend of a friend led me to someone worthwhile. And believe it or not, your gregarious nature, people-pleasing tendencies, and pathetic desire to be everyone's friend finally proved useful for once."

Right. That didn't sound promising. "What are you on about?"

A low, pleased chuckle left Sherlock. "Oh John, the sympathy card, it opens so many doors and so quickly too. It's amazing how fast information can be obtained when it's a request from a noble army doctor wounded for Queen and Country and desperate to find a cure for his ailing sister."

Ailing sister? John set his teacup down with a clunk. "What did you do?"

Sherlock waved a careless hand at the laptop. "I've been making inquiries within the medical and military community regarding Vivian's hearing and vision issues. I substituted your sister, Harriet, for her, of course. While the majority of your contacts were complete rubbish, a few have been most helpful. A Matthew Abbot, he sends his regards by the way, referred me to Connor Padley, who passed me along to Marjorie Wilson. She put me into contact with Doctor Bennett Shaywitz, a world renown professor in dyslexia at Yale University. Within half an hour, he replied back with a diagnosis. If he'd been faster, he'd remind me of me."

The irritation and alarm rising in John over what Sherlock had done abruptly took a back seat. "Wait - he diagnosed Vivian? Without seeing her?"

"He's an expert in his field, John. He didn't need to see her. A list of her symptoms was all he required." Sherlock's eyes gleamed with satisfaction. "Vivian has pure alexia. It's a rare acquired reading disorder. It's usually caused by damage to the left visual cortex. Those with pure alexia can write, but they can't read - even what they've just written."

John couldn't believe the condition occurred often enough to have an actual name. "Is there any way to treat it?"

"No method has proven effective yet. The most promising involves trying to trick the brain into recognizing consonants and vowels by vocalizing them. It's a very slow and tedious process and not very successful."

"What about her high frequency hearing sensitivity? Did he think that was related?"

"No, he said that involved a different area of the brain and connected me with an audiologist in Monterey, California. Ms. Chambers recommended three methods of treatment. The first option is medication to minimize the stress following an episode, the second is a custom pair of noise cancellation headphones set to filter out the higher frequencies, and the last is desensitization through gradual exposure."

John slowly digested the information. "Sounds like you've been busy being me." It was difficult to be too upset with Sherlock's methods when it had gotten them the necessary information to help Vivian so quickly. His mobile chimed twice more. One text was from a platoon sniper from John's regiment and the other from an old mate from St. Bart's. They were both asking about Harriet's "condition." Right. He was going to have some explaining to do. Maybe he could say his Facebook account was hacked. Yeah, that could work. It wasn't even a lie, really.

"Indeed. Take a look." Sherlock spun the laptop around to face John.

An open folder displayed a list of thirty pdf files. They were all medical journal articles. John clicked on one. It compared the structural anatomy of hemianopic alexia, whatever that was, with pure alexia. Multiple pages long, it was full of tiny print and various charts. "Did you read all these?"