Blog # 171: Excerpt from Dr. Fogan’s medical mystery novel, DINGS Chapter 26 Part A

 

 

Conner shuffled over to a shelf. His lithe, four-foot frame was draped in an over-sized adult patient gown that floated around his ankles. He wore it open in the front rather than in the back.

He picked up a plastic, multi-colored model of the brain. He turned it over and sideways, and then started to pull apart its components. A piece fell onto the thinly carpeted floor.

“Don’t do that, Conner!” I said sharply.

Sam turned and winked at him. “Aw, I’m sure that’s what it’s there for, Sandra. He’s okay.”

When the doctor returned I saw him focus on Conner’s underpants. We exchanged glances and grins about the tan-and-olive camouflage motif. Conner had begged for them because they were military like his dad. I bought him a dozen.

Sam and I sat beside each other along one wall. I started to get up. “Would you like me to reverse the gown, Doctor? Conner insisted on tying it in front.”

“No, no. It’s fine. Okay, Conner, let’s see you just walk back and forth, normally.”

“Like this?”

The neurologist nodded. He evaluated Conner’s arm swings, balance and how he walked. “Perfect. Now, walk on your tiptoes. Like this.” Dr. O’Rourke rose onto the balls of his feet and demonstrated what he wanted Conner to do.

“Good. Now, walk on your heels like this.” The doctor rocked back onto his heels as he leaned forward and elevated the toes of his shiny, black shoes to take a few awkward steps. Once again, our boy mimicked him. I covered my mouth with both hands to conceal a smirk at their awkward postures.

“Fine! Your legs are equally strong. Now, I want you to walk as if you are on a tightrope. Put one foot in front of the other and touch the heel in front with the toes on the other foot. Keep the feet real close together.”

Conner took five perfect in-line steps.

“You’ve got great balance.”

“This is easy, Dr. O’Rourke!” Conner beamed.

The neurologist returned Conner’s broad, toothy grin. “I knew you’d like this part of our visit. Now, hop up and down on your right leg like this.” Dr. O’Rourke put his hands over the side pockets of his white coat to prevent papers and tools from popping out as he hopped a couple of times. Conner imitated him. “Now switch legs. Excellent!”

“Okay, now put your feet together like this so that they touch ankle to ankle, side by side.” The doctor stood with the side of each of his shoes touching the other. “Yes, just like that! Now, stand like that and don’t move.”

“This is so easy!” Conner exclaimed. Sam smiled at him and then looked at me.

The neurologist nodded. “Now, stay just like that and close your eyes. Don’t move.”

Conner stood ramrod straight and squeezed his eyelids extra tight in that exaggerated way that little kids do. A few seconds later, the doctor said, “That’s great, Conner. Your balance centers could not be better. Now turn around so I can check your back.”

He lifted Conner’s gown and bunched it up around his shoulders. “I don’t see any spinal curvatures or birthmarks that sometimes accompany degenerative nervous system diseases that are associated with epilepsy.”

That was good to hear. All doctors should interact with patients and their families: educate us, for crying out loud! Dr. Choy did that, too.

“Okay, now climb onto the exam table, young man.” He felt Conner’s wrist pulses and then inspected Conner’s hands and fingernails. “There can be telltale clues of diseases here.”

Then he picked up a thin, cloth measuring tape and wrapped it around Conner’s head. “Your head circumference is fifty-three centimeters.” He looked at a chart and declared, “Normal head size.”

“Oh, that’s good!” I felt my heart thump and then, just as suddenly, a sharp gloom settled over me. I had become so distracted by their interactions that for a precious few moments I had actually forgotten why we were here.

Conner looked at us and giggled. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

The doctor smiled and began to wrap a pediatric-size blood-pressure cuff around Conner’s left upper arm.

“No! That gets too tight!” Conner yanked his arm away.

“This is a very important part of the evaluation, Conner. It’s a small cuff made for children. I don’t think I’ll have to make it too tight, and the pressure will only last for a few seconds. I promise.”

“Let the doctor do it, Conner,” Sam commanded.

Conner cast a sober glance at his father and slowly extended his arm. He grimaced every time Dr. O’Rourke rhythmically squeezed the large black bulb that slowly tightened the cuff around Conner’s arm.

The doctor placed his stethoscope in his ears: “Seventy-eight over fifty. That’s fine!”

Dr. O’Rourke moved the stethoscope to the boy’s chest. “No heart murmurs.” Then he moved the stethoscope over both sides of the boy’s neck. “No abnormal ‘whooshing’ sounds here, either. That suggests no blockages in the arteries leading to the brain. I wouldn’t expect to hear any in a child.”

Conner nodded and looked into the neurologist’s eyes. Dr. O’Rourke smiled at him.

“I appreciate how you’re explaining what you’re doing, Dr. O’Rourke. It’s like we’re all in medical school.” I laughed and gave Sam’s hand a gentle squeeze.

Finally, the neurologist placed the end of the stethoscope on top of Conner’s head and closed his eyes.

“I’ve never seen a doctor do that before—listen over the top of the head, I mean. Do you hear something up there?”

“I’m just being thorough, Mr. Golden. If there’s an abnormal blood vessel or increased pressure inside the skull, sometimes we can hear a telltale sound.”

“Well, did you hear anything?” Sam and I exchanged a worried glance.

“No, and that’s normal. I shouldn’t hear anything.”

This examination was turning out to be quite a performance. My doctor never did any of these things.

He told Conner to lie down on his back. Then, he quickly moved his hands over Conner’s belly as Dr. Choy had done, stopping here and there, pressing softly and moving his hands again. Conner looked uncomfortable once or twice, then erupted into giggles. “That tickles!”

“If an abdominal organ is enlarged, that could be a clue of a neurological-associated disease. Conner is normal.” He pulled out the waistband on Conner’s undershorts and took a quick look at his privates. “No evidence of a developmental or genetic disturbance here. Okay, you can go ahead and sit up now, Conner.”

The neurologist walked over to a shelf and picked up a dark vial. He shook it a couple of times, unscrewed the cap and sniffed. He returned to Conner, who was swinging his dangling legs over the edge of the exam table. Our boy appeared quite comfortable being the center of attention.

The neurologist gently pressed Conner’s left nostril closed and waved his other hand with the open vial under his right nostril. “Can you smell this?”

Conner jerked his head back and contorted his face. “Ahhhh! Nooooo!” He covered his nose and mouth with his hands.

“No, Conner. You don’t have to do that,” Dr. O’Rourke reassured him. “This one’s a good smell. Can you tell me what it is?”

Cautiously, Conner bent forward and took another sniff. Before he could answer, Dr. O’Rourke repeated, “Can you smell that?”

“Yes.”

He tested the other nostril.

“It’s good,” Conner pressed. “Is it gum?”

The neurologist turned around and held the vial under my nose. I sniffed. “It smells like something, uh…is it, uh, some spice? No. Cloves! It’s cloves.”

“Right! That’s what it is.” Then he placed it under Sam’s nose.

“Yeah. It smells good. You’re right, son. It did smell like chewing gum.”

The neurologist replaced the cap and placed the vial back on the shelf. Then he picked up a handheld eye chart. Conner tested twenty-twenty in each eye.

“Good job. Now, keep your right eye closed and look into my eye.”

The doctor stood three feet in front of Conner. Dr. O’Rourke closed his own left eye and pointed to his open right eye. “Keep looking right here in my eye,” he instructed. The neurologist stretched out both of his hands to the sides. “Look only into my eye, Conner. I want to out find how well you can see out of all of the corners of your left eye.” Dr. O’Rourke wiggled a finger off to the side and had Conner say “now” when he saw the movement.

After the exam the doctor explained, “You did great, Conner! The fact that he sees my fingers move when they’re off to the sides means that the visual nerve tracts between Conner’s eyeballs and the visual cortex at the back of his brain are working well. All of that function takes up a lot of space in the brain. My visual field testing suggests that there are no hidden abnormalities where these pathways are. That’s very important.”

I sat back and shook my head. My mind churned with his explanation and trying to visualize what he was talking about. I had never seen a neurologist at work, and I was so proud of Conner’s mature cooperation.

“He’s doing great, Sandra!” Sam whispered.

The neurologist switched off the overhead lights and lifted a cylindrical instrument off its perch on the wall behind Conner. “You’re doing very well. Now I am going to shine a light into your eyes so I can check the area where the retina and nerves are. Keep looking straight ahead and try not to move your eyes. Just stare at the X on that wall. Keep looking at it even if my head gets in the way.”

The doctor aimed a beam of light at Conner’s right pupil and moved within a couple inches from our son’s face. As Dr. O’Rourke peered through the instrument, he told us he could see where the optic nerve entered the back of Conner’s eye and the little veins pulsating around it. Then he examined the other eye. “There’s no sign of abnormal pressure inside Conner’s head,” he announced and replaced the cylindrical device on its wall holder.

“That’s a relief,” I sighed. Sam and I looked at each other. We chuckled. Conner’s face had a quizzical expression, but he smiled, too.

 

Lance Fogan, M.D. is Clinical Professor of Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. His hard-hitting emotional family medical drama, “DINGS, is told from a mother’s point of view. “DINGS” is his first novel. Aside from acclamation on internet bookstore sites, U.S. Report of Books, and the Hollywood Book Review, DINGS has been advertised in recent New York Times Book Reviews, the Los Angeles Times Calendar section and Publishers Weekly. DINGS teaches epilepsy and is now available in eBook, audiobook, soft and hard cover editions.

 

 

Blog #141: A FAMILY DEALS WITH UNRECOGNIZED EPILEPSY: Excerpted from Dr. Lance Fogan’s novel, DINGS. Chapter 24, Part 3

Continuing In the Neurologist’s office—making the diagnosis—the little boy admits to his spells under sophisticated questioning.

“Sandra.” Sam reached for my hand. I snatched it away.

I pressed my lips together and shook my head. “I don’t believe this!”

“Conner, when did these dings start?” The doctor asked. His voice was gentle and even. I looked at my lap and tried to organize my thoughts. Dr. O’Rourke continued, “Do you remember when you had the first ding, your first one?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Well, did they start a month ago? A few months ago? Before Christmas? Did they start last year, when you were still in second grade? Or, even before that? When do you think?” He smiled at our son. “Take your time. You’re doing very well, Conner.”

“Last year…um…I think, when I was in second grade. Yeah…ahh…second grade. I think...”

“And what do you mean by what you call ‘dings,’ Conner?”

“They’re dings because…uh, uh…I guess, because they feel like, uh…like little dings. You know…I don’t know.”

The doctor nodded and regarded him for several seconds. “What does a ding feel like?”

“Um…I get this funny thing…I think it’s down here.” Conner looked down and touched his shirt right over his bellybutton. “Then I get scared…but I don’t know why because there’s nothing around to make me scared. You know. Then I smell that bad thing. And then…I don’t know! I don’t know!” He sniffed and wiped his nose with his sleeve.

Dr. O’Rourke directed a quick gaze at us and then back at Conner. “How long do the dings last, Conner?”

“I don’t know!” He started to sob again. I flashed a weak smile at the doctor as I wiped my son’s cheeks and put the tissue into his hand.

“Have you ever fallen down when a ding happens? Do they ever happen when you’re standing up?”

He sniffed. “No…um…but, yeah, sometimes I fall when I’m running or playing a game.”

Dr. O’Rourke smiled at him. “Do you think you fall because you’re having a ding?”

“No.” He snorted and wiped his nose with the tissue. “I’m just playing and…uh…I trip on something or somebody tackles me. But, sometimes I drop things…you know…when I have a…um…a ding.”

“Oh, Conner. Why didn’t you ever tell me you were having these things?” I tried to smother the panicked tone in my voice as I brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. “Honey, have you had these dings at home? Have I ever been with you when they happen?” I turned back to the neurologist, “I can’t recall seeing anything like what he’s describing, Doctor.”

“I don’t know when they happen, Mommy.” He sniffed again and rubbed his nose with his sleeve. “I don’t.”

The office was quiet now except for his sobs. It shimmered with the vibrations of our fear and pain—a pain that pierced and gripped me completely—an agony that I would carry and remember for the rest of my life. Whatever happened to my son would change—no, it had already irrevocably changed—our lives. Just weeks ago we were having the happiest of days: Sam came home from Iraq; we pulled into our driveway with him; neighbors welcomed him home; he put on his old clothes; the gifts he gave us; that wonderful first dinner with candles…

“Has Conner had any problems with bed-wetting?” Dr. O’Rourke asked me.

“Hm? Oh, ah…bed-wetting?” I looked at Conner. This was not the time to shelter him—not here in this office. “There’ve been a few times, and he’s had a few accidents in his pants during the day. On laundry days—a few times I’ve found yellow stains on his underpants. They smelled like he had wet them.”

Conner moaned, “Mo-om!” and looked up at me, his eyes pleading.

I placed my palm on the top of his head. “Honey, I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to embarrass you, but this is important. The doctor has to know.”

“Conner, do you lose your urine—your pee—during these spells?” The doctor asked softly.

“We-ell...” Conner looked at me.

I nodded. “You can answer the doctor, Conner.”

He said, “Um…yeah.”

“Do you know that you’re going in your pants and you can’t stop it? Or is it that all of a sudden you’re wet and you didn’t know that you were going?”

“I-I d-don’t know that I-I’ve done it until I-I’ve d-done it,” Conner stammered through his sobs.

“Have you ever pooped in your pants?” Dr. O’Rourke’s voice was so low that I could barely make out what he said.

Conner gulped down a sob.

The neurologist cast a quick glance from Conner to us. “Has he had any bowel movements in his pants?”

“No, thank God.” I shook my head.

“Has Conner ever bitten his tongue or lip when he’s sleeping? Have you ever found blood on his pillow, Mrs. Golden?”

“Only on the night of his seizure, Doctor. I’ve never seen blood any other time.”

“So, it seems that he hasn’t had any other convulsions in his sleep that you and Mr. Golden had not witnessed.”

I shook my head and looked at Sam.

Dr. O’Rourke smiled at his patient and asked, “Conner, have you ever noticed any weakness in your arms or legs when you have a ding? It can be before the ding or after it, or at any other time.”

“No.” Conner shuddered.

“Good. What about tingling feelings? Have you ever had any tingling—you know, like the pins-and-needles you get if you hit your funny bone in your elbow—anyplace in your body when you have a ding?”

“Uh…no. I don’t think so.”

I wanted to know more, as I listened to their exchange. Yet, I feared more bad news.

“Conner, have you had any headaches or double-vision? You know, like seeing two things instead of one thing. And, do you ever have any trouble seeing out of one eye? Or numbness, like funny feelings that stay there on your face?”

“My face itches, sometimes.” Conner scratched his cheek.

“Well, yes. That’s normal. What about any funny or tingly feelings on your face when you get your dings?”

“No.”

“What about swallowing or hearing problems? Do you ever hear strange noises or voices when there’s no one talking and no one else around during your dings?”

“No.” Conner shook his head.

“Which hand do you write with, Conner?”

“Um, my right hand.” The boy held up his left hand, looked at it and quickly replaced it with his right. He turned toward me and gave me a tentative smile. He asked abashedly, “Is this my right hand, Mom?”

“That’s good,” Dr. O’Rourke said with a wide grin. He looked at me. “He is right-handed, correct?”

“Yes. He seems to write and draw with his right hand, Doctor.”

I looked at Sam. So, he finally spoke up.

“Since he writes with his right hand, the middle section of the left side of Conner’s brain is where his language center resides. In other words, it’s his dominant side. That suggests that there’s no serious structural problem in that part of Conner’s brain, especially since he had a normal CT scan. You see, the left side of the brain is dominant for most people. If you or your son reported that he had speaking or comprehension problems—that is, difficulties understanding speech—it could be a clue that his seizures came from that left-sided language area. However, he will need an MRI—a Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan, with—”

“What’s that? No! Will there be needles?” Conner leapt to his feet. Sam and I immediately reached up and touched his shoulders.

“Sit down, son.” Sam tilted his head in the direction of the boy’s seat.

Conner dropped hard onto his chair. He elevated his shoulders, opened his mouth and squinted at the neurologist. His voice quivered, “Will there be needles? Will there?”

“The MRI scan is just like the CT scan you had at the hospital. But, this time you’ll be in a tunnel.” The neurologist moved his gaze from Conner to Sam and then to me.

“Conner wasn’t awake when he had the CT scan, Doctor O’Rourke. He was still asleep after the seizure.”

“Oh. Okay. I see.” He nodded and turned back to his patient. “Well, Conner, there shouldn’t be any needles, but I can’t promise. That will be up to the radiologist. That’s the doctor who does the MRI. The radiologist will be evaluating the images as the scan is being done. If the doctor believes that more information is required, then an intravenous line may be started to inject a special dye, but—”

Conner pouted and crossed his arms over his chest. His swollen, red eyes welled up again.

“No. Wait, Conner! That won’t be done unless it’s absolutely necessary.” Dr. O’Rourke reached across the desk and touched our child’s hand. “The MRI shows the brain structures a little differently from the CT scan. It can give us additional, more detailed information. We—the doctors—need to be certain to rule out any problems.

“Look, Conner. We are going to become a team. From now on, we are going to be working—like playing—together, for a long time. I am going to be your coach. You are the star player. I will give you your rules and your plays. Your mom and dad will be like our team trainers. I’ll tell you what the team will do.”

I liked that metaphor. It should capture Conner’s cooperation. Brilliant. I smiled at my son and touched his back.

Dr. O’Rourke watched us momentarily, then continued, “I know this can all be confusing, but usually we don’t find any cause of epilepsy.”

Lance Fogan, M.D. is Clinical Professor of Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. His hard-hitting emotional family medical drama, “DINGS, is told from a mother’s point of view. “DINGS” is his first novel. Aside from acclamation on internet bookstore sites, U.S. Report of Books, and the Hollywood Book Review, DINGS has been advertised in a recent Publishers Weekly, New York Times Book Review and the Los Angeles Times Calendar section. DINGS teaches epilepsy and is now available in eBook, audiobook, and soft and hard cover editions.

Blog #128: A FAMILY DEALS WITH UNRECOGNIZED EPILPESY: Excerpted from Dr. Lance Fogan’s novel, DINGS Chapter 24, Part 2

 In the Neurologist’s office—making the diagnosis

 

The doctor looked at me. “Mom, can you tell me what happened?”

I described that evening: Conner sneezing and coughing in his sleep, his high temperature, hearing the strange noises coming from his bedroom, finding him jerking all over the bed, the wet sheet and blanket, all that blood in his mouth…

“My tongue got bit. It still hurts!” Conner blurted. He opened his mouth. “Thee?” He lisped as he protruded his tongue.

We all looked at the almost-healed blue laceration.

I heaved a sigh to slow my breathing. I put my cold fingers under my thighs to warm my hands. “Then there was that rush to the hospital and Dr. Choy.”

Dr. O’Rourke glanced again at the hospital notes in front of him on his desk. The neurologist smiled and drew a deep breath.

Before he could continue I sat forward and interjected, “Doctor, I, uh, we were hoping”—I flashed a glance at Sam’s querulous face—“Uh, we were hoping to stop the Dilantin as soon as possible. Do you think that we can?”

“We’ll see, Mrs. Golden. Dr. Choy did a thorough job screening Conner for causes of that seizure. I see that he put Conner on Dilantin. That medication may not be necessary. Your boy is a bit old for his convulsion to be secondary to just a fever, though. Let me find out a bit more. I need more information.”

I beamed at Sam and squeezed his hand. Yes! He was confirming what I had learned from the Internet. The neurologist just said what I had been praying for. I leaned back in my chair.

But, he said that he would investigate further. That was when I pictured a detective with a baying hound that scurried right and left over the ground smelling out prey. So there it was again. Something wasn’t right for these doctors. Dr. Choy had said something like that about the convulsion and Conner’s older age, too. What wasn’t Dr. O’Rourke telling us? I got the feeling that he was taking care not to terrify my already-shaken family. I don’t exactly know why—I felt some ominous undertone.

Dr. O’Rourke asked, “Has Conner ever passed out or fainted in the past?”

“No. But, you know, I wanted to ask you: Sam’s brother had something similar when he was an infant. He had a fever then, too. That was the only time it happened though. Right, Sam?” Sam nodded. “I’ve heard that seizures can run in families. Is that true? God, I hope not…” My voice trailed off.

“They can.”

I clasped my hands and leaned forward. Then I sat on my fingers again.

Dr. O’Rourke turned and addressed his patient. “Conner, have you ever blanked out when you’re thinking about something?”

“Uh, like…what?”

I looked at Conner. Sam did, too. Why did Conner say that? I got this uneasy feeling that Conner somehow understood what the doctor was hinting at. Sam’s mouth dropped open. He looked at me; his eyes narrowed.

The neurologist cleared his throat and leaned forward over his desk. “I mean, let’s say that you’re thinking about something, or watching a movie or a TV program, or someone is talking to you. Does it ever seem as though you suddenly missed what was happening? Like your mind went blank all of a sudden. I don’t mean daydreaming; everybody does that. When you daydream, your mind is still thinking of something—like you zone out—but you know it. Let’s say something is important to you and you are really paying attention.”

Dr. O’Rourke stole a quick glance at Sam and me. Then he looked back at Conner and continued, “And then, all of a sudden, the scene in the movie or on the TV screen has changed, and—” He clapped his hands once. “Suddenly you don’t know what happened, even though you were following the story really closely. Has that ever happened to you?”

Conner leaned forward in his chair and dug his fingers hard into the edge of the doctor’s desk. I saw white at their tips. “Well, um, sometimes I get these, uh…you know, I get this funny, this ding feeling. I don’t know, I—I—and then something else has happened and I don’t know what.”

What? Sam and I looked at each other. My jaw dropped. My body tightened and my voice was loud. “What do you mean, Conner? What ding feeling? What are you saying? When does this happen?”

He turned toward me. “A lot. When it happens at school Mrs. Dorsey gets mad at me.”

“Mrs. Dorsey gets mad at you? What do you mean? Why? What happens?” I grabbed his arm.

I looked at Dr. O’Rourke. He sucked in his cheeks and his lips pursed as he slowly nodded his head one time. His eyes moved down to my hand that gripped Conner’s arm. Otherwise, he maintained a placid expression as he watched us.

“She asks me if I…um…if, uh…I need more time to do my tests. Like that spelling test. She said I needed more time…um…to finish.”

“Did you finish? Did you need more time? Which was it?”

“I—I don’t know. I don’t know!” Conner’s chin quivered.

Dr. O’Rourke picked up his pencil and held it poised over his notepad. “What you’re telling us is very helpful, Conner.”

I released Conner’s arm and leaned back in my chair. As my legs straightened, my shoes kicked the bottom of the neurologist’s desk. What was he saying? None of this made sense.

Dr. O’Rourke licked his lower lip. “How often does this happen, Conner? This ding?”

Conner shrugged. “I dunno…I dunno. I don’t!”

“Well, what would you say? Does it happen every day? Does it happen every few days, or every few weeks or months?”

“I dunno. A couple of times, I guess.”

“Did it happen today?”

“No.” Conner sniffled.

“Did it happen yesterday, Conner?”

“No.”

“Does it happen a lot?”

 “It doesn’t happen every day…I think.” He shuddered and hiccupped back a sob. He looked at me. Tears started to roll down his cheeks. His chin trembled. When I leaned over to wrap my arm around his shoulders he sobbed louder. “I’m scared. I’m scared, Mom!” He wiped his cheek with his sleeve.

I stared out and couldn’t move for a moment. I was in slow motion. Everything was in slow motion. I took some tissues out of my pocket and began to wipe his tears. My ice-cold hand shook. “Don’t be scared, honey. You’re doing fine.”

My gaze darted between Conner and the doctor. Sam stared at our son; his cheek muscles rippled.

“Yes, you are doing just fine, Conner. This is very good, very helpful.” Dr. O’Rourke kept his gaze fixed on his patient. “Now, do you ever imagine that you smell something that’s not really there, that nobody else can smell? Do you ever get a taste that just came into your mouth without eating anything?”

Conner gave a tiny nod.

“Is it a smell or a taste, Conner?”

 “I think I smell something…um, uh…but I don’t know what it is.”

“Well, is it like something bad, Conner? Like, burning rubber? Something like that?”

“Yeah!” Conner’s face brightened. He nodded vigorously. “That’s it! That’s what it is. It smells like the things Daddy burns in the yard at work.” Animated now, he scrunched up his nose and his body rocked back and forth as he nodded. “It’s gross,” he added.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I looked at Sam. What was Conner talking about? Why had he hidden this?

The neurologist continued, “And then what happens, Conner?”

“I don’t know!” Conner wiped his nose on the cuff of his shirtsleeve.

Dr. O’Rourke turned to me. “Have you ever witnessed one of his ding spells? Have you talked with his teacher about them?”

“I don’t even know what Conner is talking about. I’ve never seen anything like that!” I looked at Sam. “Have you? He’s never said anything about them to me.”

“No. I’ve been away so long. I served in the Army in Iraq this past year, Doctor. I just got back two months ago.”

Dr. O’Rourke held his gaze on Sam. “I see.”

“The school had him evaluated by a school psychologist because he wasn’t completing his class assignments,” I volunteered. “Everybody thought his problem was stress from, you know, because his father was deployed in Iraq. I arranged for him to be treated by a psychologist, Dr. Frank Thomas. Conner has already seen him a few times.”

Conner lowered his head and curled his fingers in his lap.

“I know him.” The neurologist nodded.

“Could these spells be causing him to fall behind in school? You know, it turned out that his teacher from last year thought he could do better work then, too. They had no idea why he was not. And now, you’re saying that these things…these things could have…could have been going on for a whole year, Doctor?” I turned to Conner. My eyes narrowed and my voice got louder. “Conner, these have been happening for a year? Or more? Why didn’t you say something, honey? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Sandra.” Sam reached for my hand. I snatched it away.

 

 

Lance Fogan, M.D. is Clinical Professor of Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “DINGS” is his first novel. It is a mother’s dramatic story that teaches epilepsy, now available in eBook, audiobook and soft cover editions.