The Lies and the Lives of the Taken

Gerard 27

        I swallow thickly. "And?" I ask. 

        He looks back up at me. "Peripheral neuropathy," the doctor says. 

        "Okay," I say, glancing down. I don't know what that is but I know enough to understand that it's not good. "How do you fix it?"

        He sighs, leaning forward in his chair. "It's not as simple as that." He starts flipping through the files. "From what you told the nurses, it's rather severe." He flips another page, reading off my symptoms. "Numbness in hands and feet. Regularly dropping objects. Sharp, stabbing pains...Collapsing and...seizures." He closes the papers and looks up at me. "And this started 2 months ago but you just now decide to see someone?"

        "I thought it would go away," I say simply. "Evidently not. So how do you fix it?"

        "There isn't exactly a treatment," he says. I lean forward in the chair. "The only way to truly improve the condition is addressing what's causing it." 

        "Such as?" I ask.

        "Typically, being overweight or having high blood pressure or diabetes. However, none of those are the cases for you and you're only 27."

        "Can...it not be fixed then?" I ask, refraining for my voice breaking. 

        "It depends," he says, clasping his hands together. "It could be hereditary."

        I shift my jaw. "Let's say it's not," I mutter. 

        The doctor nods. "If you've been traumatically injured, it may have caused nerve damage."

        "How traumatic?" I ask. The doctor gives me a suspicious look. "Say a car accident?"

        His eyes glance down, thinking then looking up at me. "Possibly. Were you in one?" I nod my head. I want this off the books and swept under the rug. Hence while he's not my usual doctor. But now I have to go by my civilian alias's report, which states I've been in a traumatic car accident without medical help for hours. But in the actual report, I know they calculated from my condition from my bodily damage and the scene of the crash. It wasn't enough to severely injure me. Disorientate, yes, but no permanent damage.  However, I don't know what else would have caused this to start happening to me. "Then it might be the cause," he says.

        "Just to be sure," I say, "is there anything else that could possibly cause this?"

        "Yes," he says, pausing to think. "Are you a frequent drinker or exposed to toxins often?" 

        "I don't drink that much," I say, looking at him. "And what is a toxin exactly?"

        "Any substance that you could inhale, ingest, or absorb that has negative effects on your brain and nervous system." I sit back in my chair. "Any insecticides, lead, mercury or such?"

        My heart slows down as he says those words and my chest tenses up. "No," I say indifferently. None of those...but 300mg of arsenic. "I guess it is the car accident. So how can I fix it?"

        "If its nerve damage, there's only so much you can do but it may be something you'll have to adjust to."

        "What?" I whimper. I can't live with this. I mean, if I was a normal person, it would be fine. But I'm not normal. I need to be fine. I can't have any health conditions. I'm an agent. I need to pass a physical when before I get back, which is coming up soon. I can't pass it if my hands are shaking so violently that I drop my weapon. And I'm pretty sure having a seizure is an automatic failure. "There's nothing that could help?" I tense up. I can't tell him it's because of the arsenic so he'll only be suggesting treatment for if it was from a car crash.