Side Effects May Vary Page 2

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  She sat in a padded chair as she waited, her hand occasionally reaching out to rub the soft fabric covering the arm. It felt cool to her touch at first, but swiftly grew warmer as it leeched some of her own body heat.

  The sound of a door nearby opening made her tilt her head. Footsteps. The door closed. More footsteps, coming her way. “Greetings!” Came the cheerful voice from some unknown young man. “You must be Carol-Anne Lee! It’s good to meet you, Ms. Lee.” A gentle hand grasped hers briefly, giving her fingers a polite squeeze before letting go.

  “The pleasure is mine, of course.” Carol-Anne replied as she listened to the sounds of him settling down in a chair across from her. “You must be Dr. Fredrickson, the one Dr. Peters said would be performing the surgery to restore my vision.”

  The soft creaking of aged wood and the rustle of cloth told her that her visitor was leaning back in the chair. “Yes, ma’am. I am Fredrickson, and I am indeed a surgeon specializing in areas of the brain, however, you were horribly misled if Peters told you I could guarantee you success. You see,-”

  “No no, I was told the procedure was strictly experimental and that it may not work.” She interrupted sharply. “I know all that. But if there’s even the remotest chance… I have to try. You understand, don’t you?”

  A soft sigh, barely audible. The hiss of a hand rubbing across hair.

  “Yes, ma’am. I understand. I just want to make sure that everything is perfectly clear. So then! With that settled, let me just explain a few other things you will need to know.”

  A rustle of papers. A clearing of the throat.

  “There have been a few studies done about people born blind who later get the ability to see, but mostly they have been children. So we don’t have much information to tell us what to expect.” Fredrickson paused a moment, but when Carol-Anne offered no interruption, he continued. “What we have discovered, however, is that the brain is not hard wired from birth to understand what it sees. I know you’re hoping, and probably expecting to come out of this operation with perfect 20/20 vision and the ability to live a normal life, but that may not be the case.”

  “What do you mean?” Carol-Anne felt her pulse begin to rise in worry. “You mean there’s no chance that I could see? Even after the surgery?”

  Dr. Fredrickson chuckled lightly, but she could detect more nervousness than humor in his tone. “No, Ms. Lee, that’s not what I’m saying. There is actually a very good chance that the operation will be a complete success and you will have the ability to see just fine! However, you should know what to expect when it happens. You see, you have lived over forty years without ever using your eyes. Your brain has grown accustomed to using your other senses. And at first, you will be relying very heavily on those senses while your brain learns how to interpret the new information your eyes will be sending it. There will be therapy of course.”

  Carol-Anne tilted her head slightly in thought. This news was not at all what she had been expecting. She had been under the impression that once sight was restored to her eyes, and she held no doubts that the procedure would work flawlessly, that she would be completely normal for the first time in her life. She would be able to look out and see everything around her, read printed text in a book rather than using her fingertips to feel for tiny bumps on a page. That she would be able to go watch a movie and actually see the actors which she could only previous hear. That she could watch the sun rise. “So, you’re saying that even if I do gain the ability to use my eyes, I still won’t be able to see?”

  “Well, it sounds that way, I suppose. But no. Let me explain what I mean.” Fredrickson cleared his throat again, the wood of the padded chair creaking as he leaned forward once more. “I’ll try not to get too technical here. There have been a lot of advancements made in neuro-science. We’ve begun making out the brain and figuring out how it functions, but keep in mind, we still have a long way to go. That said, we have found that the brain itself is very adaptable because it does not come preprogrammed. It…it creates connections as it goes. That’s why babies have to learn how to walk. They also have to learn how to crawl, how to touch things, they have to develop hand-eye coordination. It’s not there, it has to be…developed. Is this making sense, ma’am? I’m afraid I’m not really used to talking to….”

  He let the sentence fade out, unwilling to finish it, but Carol-Anne nodded, understanding exactly what he meant. He wasn’t used to talking to normal people, the vast, uneducated masses. Never the less, if he was able to help, she was willing to overlook his awkward condescension. “It makes perfect sense.” She said in a clipped voice. “Please continue.”

  “Very well.” Again came the hiss as he ran his palm across his hair. “You see, ma’am, your eyes are perfectly fine. There is absolutely nothing wrong with them. The trouble is strictly with your brain. Due to your, em, your mother’s use of illegal narcotics, in this case, methamphetamine, your brain is slightly….malformed, I think is the best explanation. So your eyes are sending information in, but the brain is refusing to acknowledge it. I am going to attempt to correct that.”

  “Yes, I get all that.” Carol-Anne snapped in growing impatience. “But why won’t I be able to see once your done? Why will I need this therapy you mentioned? What will still be wrong with me?”

  Fredrickson gave a small, embarrassed chuckle. “Nothing will really be wrong with you, ma’am. If the surgery is successful, you will be as normal as anyone else. However, because your brain has never developed the ability to see, it has never made any connections between objects and what they look like. Facial expressions, colors, objects, none of it will make any sense until you learn to recognize it. That will be where the therapy comes in. You will need to teach your brain to recognize the information it’s receiving.”

  “I see.” She replied flatly, her anger replaced by a hollow numbness as she began to realize just how unrealistic her prior hopes had been. It would take a lot more work than she had anticipated to see her first sunset. “Very well then. When is the surgery?”

  Fredrickson let out a relieved sigh that his speech was over, and he was once more on familiar ground. “Well, I already have everything set up for Thursday. So the day after tomorrow. Please do not eat anything tomorrow or Thursday, and refrain from drinking anything but water.”

  “Very well.” Carol-Anne said as she rose to her feet, once more accepting the young doctor’s hand. “Then I shall return Thursday afternoon, promptly at 10 am.” Without waiting for a reply, she unfolded her portable cane and turned toward the door to the office, counting her steps in her head as she silently made her way outside.

  Carol-Anne’s mind swirled as she walked along the sidewalk, automatically counting her steps but not paying much attention to her destination. Just two more days. Two more days until she would be able to see. Or so she hoped.

  The soft crunch of grass under her shoes made her stop. She held still and just listened to the sounds surrounding her. There was a high, fast chirp of a squirrel, a long, slow whistle of a bird, a few feet away, there was a tapping flick of a lizard rushing across the ground. After deciding that she must be in a park, she smiled to herself and relaxed, searching out a bench.

  For several hours, Carol-Anne sat on the bench and listened, the tangled swirl of her thoughts soothed by the sounds of nature surrounding her. And then her carefully constructed peace was shattered by the honk of a far away car alarm.

  “I hate those damn things!” She mumbled furiously to herself, unfolding her guiding cane once more. “I swear, the deaf are the only ones who hear them.” She then carefully turned away from the bench, counting her steps again, the number rising in the back of her mind automatically, while her attention was still occupied by the upcoming gift of sight, and all the reasons she wanted it.

  “Freak!” A voice echoed in her mind, reverberating through the decades of her past to taunt her and opening a wound that she had thought was long since sealed. “Blind as a bat,
freak!”

  “Make her scream like a bat!” echoed another hateful voice.

  “Bat girl! Bat girl! Bat girl!” The chorus rang even louder, drowning out all other sounds, making her tighten her grip angrily on her guiding cane.

  “Hey, Lady! Look out!” Another voice broke in, although the new voice was unfamiliar to her. Callused hands grabbed her roughly, pulling her nearly off her feet. Her protest was thrust from her mouth, along with most of the air from her lungs as she collapsed into the solid trunk of a stranger’s body. Before she could regain her balance, a horn blared and she felt a harsh wind blast across her body, as well as the peppering of disturbed gravel, caused by a truck that raced past the very spot she had been just a moment ago.

  Carol-Anne gasped and pressed a hand to her chest, afraid that her heart would burst free of her rib cage like some terrified, rabid animal. She had been so caught up in the ghosts of her past that she had almost become a ghost in her present.

  “Hey, lady, you alright there?” Came the concerned voice of her savior. “You almost had a date with that semi. Didn’t you see… Oh, no I suppose not.” The tight grip loosened and Carol-Anne was allowed to gain her footing before the strong arms holding her dropped away. “Sorry. Didn’t know. Do you, uh, want me to walk you home or something?”

  Pity! She heard that unwelcome note creeping into his voice once he realized she was blind. And no doubt he would think of her as completely helpless. Just like everyone else. “No. No thank you.” Carol-Anne snapped sharply, straightening her ruffled clothing. “I was simply distracted is all. I can take care of myself just fine! I’ve been doing it all my life!”

  “Sorry lady. I didn’t mean to offend you.” Fear and a touch of annoyance replaced the pity in the stranger’s voice. Then, before she can say another word, to apologize and say that she hadn’t meant to be so rude, she’d just been caught by surprise, she heard the patter of footsteps as the man turned and walked away. By the scuffing sounds his shoes made, Carol-Anne knew he was upset and she mentally berated herself for her behavior, but it was too late to change it.

  Giving a soft sigh, she turned back to the street she was intending to cross, listening intently for a break in the pattern of passing cars, then hurriedly made her way across before continuing on to her hotel room.

  When Carol-Anne woke up the next morning, her heart was racing. Fading from her mind were more of the hateful, angry voices form her childhood. She had had another nightmare. Her hands clenched tightly when she thought of those who had bullied her in her youth, said she wasn’t normal, wasn’t good enough. Then she remembered all the boys who had refused to even give her a chance, refused to date her because she was blind. All the men who’d looked down on her in pity and said they’d rather just be friends.

  “Just one last day.” She whispered to the empty room. “Just one more day and I’ll be just like everyone else. No more pity for ‘poor little Carol-Anne’.” There came no reply from the darkness. She expected none.

  Reaching out to the side table beside the bed, her fingers skittered across the smooth, cold surface until she located what she was seeking. A watch. It had been a custom order and spoke the time out loud when she pushed the button on the side. “6:15 a.m.” came the mechanical voice.

  “So early. Carol-Anne complained, listening to the faint, muffled sounds that filtered into her hotel room. There was the rumbling growl of traffic, the offensive honking of horns and another car alarm. She could also make out the low hiss of cooled air as it left the air conditioner vent. In one of the rooms next to her, someone was pacing. Deciding to drown out the noise of the rest of the world, she grabbed the remote, which had lain next to her watch, and flipped on the television.

  “Look at that. Look at that!” Someone was exclaiming. “Isn’t that beautiful? These knives cut so cleanly it’s practically a work of art.”

  Grumbling in annoyance, Carol-Anne flipped the channel.

  “And as you can clearly see-”

  *click*

  “As I was looking out over this great scene of-”

  *click*

  “But what about the ones you don’t see?”