Head Case by Cole Cohen

go,” said the Cat.
    â€œâ€”so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
    â€œOh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

    â€”Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

 
    June 2007
    Portland, Oregon
    During the summer of my diagnosis, I’m living in Northeast Portland with a hip twentysomething couple in a key lime–colored house. John builds custom amps for a living and hangs out with rock stars. Astrid is a beautiful Swedish woman who trains horses. They seem incredibly nice and deeply in love. I have a room downstairs, and they live upstairs. I try not to let the cats out. Sometimes we all have beers in the living room and watch their latest Netflix order. More often, I just duck my head out of my room now and again and try not to get too much of their bliss on me. I think of myself as the mildly eccentric but nice-enough female boarder, like a peripheral character in a Dickens novel.
    A week or so after that afternoon in Dr. Volt’s office, I come home from work and pass John, bent over his laptop on the living room couch. “How are you?” he asks. What is amazing about John is not only that he asks this, but also that often, he genuinely wants to know. “I’ve got a hole in my brain,” I say, shrugging. I had said some vague things to Astrid about seeing the neurologist, so this information isn’t coming completely out of left field, but now I’m trying to play off my shock as indifference.
    â€œDude, that’s nothing. I knew a guy in high school who had a hole in his penis … I mean, in the side .”
    I stare at him, which apparently encourages further explanation. “He used to … streeetch it out during homeroom.” John mimics stretching with his hands.
    â€œWow. That’s, um, crazy,” I say.
    â€œYeah.” John nods.
    I want a cure, a cast, a shot, a surgery. Isn’t that how this works? The doctor finds a break and heals it. The neuropsychologist whom Dr. Volt refers me to looks like a midwestern housewife or a kindergarten teacher, generically maternal. I imagine that her demeanor left her no choice. She was drafted into a life of nurturing the disabled and soon began donning the costumes required of her role: denim dresses with sunflower appliqu é s. Today’s ensemble is a beige tunic and a long strand of turquoise glass beads. I am eager to begin my rehabilitation.
    I approach the neuropsychologist as if she were my physical therapist. Together, we will strengthen my brain as if it were a muscle instead of a vital organ. It’s a natural concept: I am sick, I will get better. I am weak, I will become strong. Now that we’ve identified the problem, we can begin working toward the solution.
    If Dr. Volt had said that there was nothing to be done, I would like to believe that I would have worked toward accepting that. But no one has ever said that because no one can really say. What we know about the brain will always be outweighed by what we don’t know about it. This is as much an advantage as it is a disadvantage.
    â€œWhat are we going to do together?” I ask. “There must be something akin to physical therapy for this, like they have for stroke victims.”
    She furrows her brow. “There is no physical therapy. Our time together is more about compensating than strengthening.”
    I don’t know what to make of this; surely there must be more we can do. Put me on a treadmill, strap electrodes to my head, bring out the flash cards—I’m begging you. I’m an eager student, ready to practice skill sets and strategies.
    She pauses for a moment. “Have you ever considered a guide dog?”
    She asks me to complete a test involving drawing dots on lines with a No. 2 pencil. While I draw dots on the lines, I fantasize about the dog.
    The second and last time we meet, the neuropsychologist, who cannot