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“I’m going to lose my mind?” I finally speak up, and both Dr. Nagar and Cash look at me concerned.
“No,” Dr. Nagar replies, placing his forearms on the desk and linking his fingers together. “It means you could have trouble walking, speaking, or even swallowing. That is usually during late progression, but early signs can be depression, involuntary muscle twitching, and seizures, like the one that caused the car accident.”
“What kind of treatment is there?” Cash asks eagerly. He always gets right to the point, to try and fix things, but I’m not a motorcycle he can take a wrench to - or a wall he can knock down.
Dr. Nagar swallows hard. He has been stoic up until now, and I can feel his next words are going to be something I don’t want to hear even more. “I’m afraid Huntington’s disease is terminal.” He twitches his thumbs nervously and looks from me to Cash with a practiced, sympathetic expression.
I focus on the diplomas nicely framed on the wall behind him, and I find myself wondering if he ever imagined that he would be sitting at a desk telling a young woman that is not even thirty years old that she has a terminal illness. Do they even teach doctors how to do this, I wonder?
“What do you mean, ‘terminal’?” Cash asks, the raw pain and anguish in his voice are palpable. It causes the room to grow heavy and suffocating.
“There is no cure for it. We can put you on medication for the seizures, but right now, that’s all we can do,” he addresses me, and I hold his stare, trying to take all of this in. “Symptoms usually appear during middle age, between 30 and 50 years old.” I should be more reactive to the news of this terminal illness, but I can’t find it in me to be more devastated than the loss of our baby. Nothing will ever compare to that.
“We don’t usually diagnose someone so young. If she hadn’t had the seizure, we wouldn’t have caught this-” Dr. Nagar is cut off by Cash’s sharp rebuttal.
I can feel the chaos around me, but I don’t acknowledge it. The sound of Cash’s palms hitting the hard oak desk echoes in the room.
“We just lost our baby and you have the nerve to suggest to me that she’s lucky she had a seizure?!” I close my eyes against Cash’s harsh words.
“You need to calm down, Mr. Morgan.” Dr. Nagar tries to gain control of the situation, but there is no stopping this train. There is only the reality that at some point in the not too distant future, the tracks will run out for me.
“YOU SHOULD CALL your parents,” Cash tells me on the ride home.
“I don’t want anyone to know.” I shake my head, having already decided this is how it’s going to be.
Cash scoffs as if he doesn’t believe I could ever keep this a secret. “You’re going to have to tell people eventually.”
“I will deal with it when the time comes.” I look out of the window to see patches of the blue ocean in between the buildings as we drive through town.
“I think you need to deal with it now. What if…”
I snap my head in his direction. “What if I start to lose my mind? Or my ability to control my movements in the next couple of months?”
“Yes,” Cash admits with a raised voice, his eyes wide with concern. “Is it so wrong for me to think of that? Because I have no fucking clue what’s going to happen in the future, and you just want to ignore it!” He hits the steering wheel in frustration.
“I just found out!” I shouldn’t have to explain that to him. “I haven’t even had time to process it yet.” I place my hand against my forehead, trying to ease the headache forming.
“Mia?”
“Give me a fucking minute to process this, Cash!” I yell at him.
“Don’t take this out on me,” he argues.
“Pull over,” I yell.
“What?” Cash looks at me confused.
“I said pull over!” I grab the door handle and try to wrench it open.
“Jesus, Mia, you’re not going to jump out of a moving car!” He grabs my arm, trying to stop me.
Panic rises inside of me and bubbles to the surface like boiling water. I have this overwhelming need to escape this car because I can’t breathe. “Don’t touch me!” I yell and shake off his hand.
He steers the car down a side street and pulls to the curb in front of a building. The minute the car stops, I yank the door open and get out. There’s a stone guardrail up ahead and a path that leads to the beach. I just need to move right now so I keep walking, because if I stop, I’m afraid I won’t be able to move again.
“Mia!” Cash calls from behind me, followed by a few curse words before he catches up to me. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” I say, throwing my hands in the air. “I need to breathe.” I take in big breaths of air, placing my palms to my thighs.
