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A Slice of Lex: A Slice of Christine

By Jen Harlow

Christine woke up in the hospital, her mom gently stroking her back. Last she had known she'd been running on the playground with some of her friends, and then... That was it. She didn't know how she ended up here, but she had a good idea. "It happened again, didn't it mama?" The young mouse said, looking down at her blanketed feet.

"Yes baby, it did."

"Why is this happening, I just wanted to play with my friends. I felt fine and I took my medicine like a good girl." Christine's eyes welled with tears, her ears drooping slightly.

"It's not your fault baby, we might just have to try another medicine."

"Again? The last time I tried a new medicine it made my tummy hurt all the time."

"It won't be that one, the doctor knows you can't take that one baby."

The feline doctor walked in, sitting on a stool, even with Christine. She smiled warmly, putting her hand on the mouse's shoulder. "Hello little one, what's your name?"

"Christine." The mouse answered shyly.

"Funny, that's my name too," The doctor said, coaxing a smile out of the small mouse. "I'm Doctor Christine Dellinger." The doctor flipped through the chart she was holding, "It says here you've been having more seizures recently, that's no fun is it?"

"No. I hate it, I can't even play with my friends on the playground." She said, curling up into a sad little ball.

"Ah, I'm sorry." The doctor said, offering her a lollipop, "but I'm gonna try my best to fix it alright?" She turned to her mother, while the smaller mouse sucked happily on the candy, "Well, we can still try upping the dosage of her current medication, if she doesn't seem to be having any adverse side effects from it already."

"No, she seems to tolerate this one a lot better than the last two. She was allergic to the first one, and the second one made her stomach horribly upset."

The doctor flipped the chart's page, and nodded before flipping back to the first page and writing her own notes. "How long did she take the Diazepam for?"

"About two weeks, but she was miserable on it, and was barely functional."

"I see, from everything it seems her sedative is working. I understand there were some dosing issues there. Did her primary care try a lower dosage for the anticonvulsant?"

"Yes, but she still didn't react well to it."

The doctor nodded. "For right now I'm going to recommend increasing the dosage of her current medication, slightly. I'm writing her a prescription for the thirty instead of the twenty five milligram. After all, she's small enough I don't want to dose her too heavily." The doctor wrote more on the chart. "This may however, only be a stop-gap, to reduce the frequency of her seizures for the next while." The doctor sighed, Christine was sitting on the bed, looking attentively between her mother and the doctor. "There is an option you should discuss with her primary care doctor. It's kind of experimental, but it's been shown to help reduce seizures in the patients that have been treated by this process."

"Well what is it?"

"It's a device implanted along the nerves of the neck, it basically senses a seizure coming on, and sends out electric signals in response, attempting to regulate the brain activity and stop overstimulation."

"I will keep that in mind." Mrs. LeBlanc said, looking at her daughter, who had a mixture of confusion and fear on her face. "Don't worry, you'll get a say in it too." She said, hugging her only baby close to her.

A few weeks passed, and Christine and her parents had talked the idea over extensively. Christine frequently voicing her fear at undergoing surgery, while simultaneously admitting that she would be willing to try it, if it even hoped to reduce her seizures. Finally, the family reached consensus. Christine had elected to undergo the procedure, and the date was set, with a neurosurgical expert. Who agreed to come to the same children's hospital they were already familiar with. The trip to the hospital was a quiet one, Christine still in her pajamas and a sleep in the backseat of the family's van, her appointment early. Her mom and dad were preoccupied with the thoughts of what their daughter was about to go through. Having the process explained, in as much detail as possible, by the surgeon. Essentially, a small battery would be placed under the skin of Christine's chest, with leads running up into her neck and attaching to one of her nerves, where it could sense and counteract seizure signals coming from the brain. Her mom picked her up gently, careful not to wake her, and carried her into the hospital, Christine not weighing all that much even at this age. The small mouse woke up just as they were entering the waiting room. They signed her in, and were taken back surprisingly quickly. Her mom held her hand and covered her eyes as the nurse inserted an IV as gently as she could. She cried as she was rolled towards the O.R. and away from her parents. The nurse quietly assuring her it would be okay. As they passed through the doors of the O.R. she had begun feeling drowsy, when the anesthesia mask was placed on her, it wasn't long before she was out.

Her next memory was one of pain, her neck and her chest both felt like they were on fire, her throat was sore and dry. It was all she could do to wake up at the doctor's insistence. He handed her a cup of water with a straw in it, and asked her to drink as much as she could. The mouse sipped the water, feeling some slight relief in her throat. As her vision cleared, she saw her mom and dad, her dad was asleep in a large recliner that had been set up in the room, while her mom was holding her hand, and patting it gently. Her voice came out, small and cracking, "Mama, I hurt." She said, attempting to lean into her mother through the pain in her chest.

"I know sweetie, I know." Her mom said, kissing her on the head, "get some rest if you can."

"You won't leave me will you mama?" The little mouse asked, her eyes pulling shut again.

"No baby, I'll stay right here with you."

Her mom held true to that promise, sleeping many times in the small chair, with her head laying on the bed next to her daughter. It was weeks before Christine went back to school. For the first while things seemed fine. She would every now and again "zone out," the way she did before a seizure hit, but this time no seizure would follow. She ran and played with her friends, and generally enjoyed being a little kid. However, after a few weeks, something terrible happened. Christine was sitting with her class watching a movie. She felt herself zoning out, experiencing that weird tingling all over that she normally did. This time however, she fell back onto the floor, convulsing violently, bad enough that she was nearly foaming at the mouth. She woke up with teacher standing over her, feeling pain through her chest. The principle stood by, on the phone with the paramedics. Christine attempted to speak, but her voice was so quiet. She couldn't say much without having to stop and take a breath. Feeling like she was going to pass out every time she was trying to speak. The panic setting in, she attempted to stand, even though everything felt weak.

______________________________________________________________________________

Christine awoke in her hospital bed, Mat gently shaking her shoulder. "Chrissie, wake up, you're having a nightmare." She sat up, breathing hard. Grabbing Mat's shoulders, she pulled him in, crying silently into his chest. He put his arm around her, gently stroking her back. She finally let go, everything around her blurred from her tears and her lack of glasses. "Do you want to talk about it? It seemed pretty bad."

She nodded, picking up her phone."I was dreaming about the surgery I had when I was ten." She wrote, "The surgery that cost me my voice."

"I never really did know exactly what happened there. The only person you've ever told is Lexi, and she promised not to bring it up."

Christine let out a deep breath, her body visibly drooping, "The device they installed was supposed to only send out enough charge to try and prevent a seizure from happening." She wrote, turning to face him for a second before returning to her phone. "Instead it freaked out and sent a lot stronger charge than it was supposed to and damaged some of my nerves. Including the one that controlled my vocal cords." She let out another deep breath, "They were paralyzed, stuck almost entirely shut and I could barely breathe. In attempt to fix them to where I could possibly talk and breathe, they cut too much tissue, and basically left me unable to speak. I can breathe alright most of the time now, but I still have trouble with stairs and have to stop and rest often when working on ladders the way I do."

"Wow... The only thing I can say is, that sucks." The cat said, feeling sorry for the mouse.

"It's alright, it took me a while to come to peace with it," the mouse wrote, "The one thing I still can't get over sometimes, is how much I used to sing... When I was little I sang everywhere, and now I can't. That's why I'm so passionate about sound I guess." She shrugged, "It's really the only way I can express my emotions with any kind of noise or music." She looked distant for a second. "Still, I wish I could hear myself sing again."

Mat walked over again, pulling her into a side hug, "I'm sure you'd be amazing," he said, rubbing her arm slightly. She took his hand in hers.

"Thank you," she looked out the window, it was still dark. Looking at her phone's clock, it was only about one in the morning. She let go of his hand, and continued writing. "I think I'm going to try and sleep some more," She wrote, leaning back into her bed. "I'm glad you're here with me. Thank you for helping me through that." She put her phone down, looking at him for a moment more, before laying her head back and closing her eyes.

He pulled the blanket up to her shoulders, "You're welcome," he laughed softly, "Missie Mousie."