✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

149. A Possible Explanation

This chapter is dedicated to Jen-Jen. Thank you so much for all the support you've given me; both the support on Patreon and all the editing help. And my deepest apologies for forgetting to include this dedication when I originally posted this chapter; I was half-asleep, and clicked the 'Publish' button prematurely. Thank you Jen-Jen.

Tess glanced nervously around the waiting room, watching any corner in case someone she knew appeared. It wasn't like the little place in Ashfields, where anybody in the clinic had their own issues. Dr Lutwa had responded pretty quickly, saying that there was exactly one kind of neurological damage that could possibly explain her having instinctive responses to the pressure in her bladder without being consciously aware of it. But that meant she needed a brain scan.

Tess had been terrified; but like Gabby had said, she needed to deal with this now. She couldn't back away. So she had done all the things she knew she should do. Telling Ffrances that she might need some help in case this turned out to be a psychological thing, and making an appointment for a FMRI scan at Pine Ridge. And now she was sitting in the waiting room, terrified. There was a good chance somebody she knew from school would be on the site, because the doctors in Pine Ridge were all on the same site, as well as the hospital and other specialist facilities. She could tell herself that it was incredibly unlikely any of them would be in the imaging department; but that didn't seem to matter to her hindbrain.

"Tess?" Tess stood up with a relieved smile as soon as she heard Dr Lutwa's voice. She didn't need to hide anymore. But then she looked around the quiet waiting room one more time, just in case any unnoticed friends or acquaintances had been alerted to her presence when they heard her name. But there was nobody.

The doctor's office looked kind of like a closet. There were shelves along three walls, packed solid with unidentifiable boxes. There were no pictures on them, just brand names that meant nothing to a non-doctor. Despite the clutter, it gave the room a distinctly austere atmosphere. The desk was a lot smaller than the one at the clinic; and there was still only just enough space for Dr Lutwa to edge around and sit behind it. For a moment, Tess thought they were shoehorned into a temporary space because the other offices were in use, until she noticed the medical diplomas displayed on the top shelves, from universities in all the countries where Dr Lutwa had practised medicine. This was the natural territory of a doctor who valued pragmatism over style, and didn't particularly care for a spacious office or the illusion of wealth.

"Cosy," Tess commented as she sat down.

"You should see the place I worked out of in Failaka," Dr Lutwa answered. "In any case, I think I should give you a more detailed explanation of my thoughts here. What we're looking for, and the odds of me seeing anything. I want you to have realistic expectations up front, you see. There is a possible neurological explanation for this kind of problem, but only one. Unless there's something I'm missing. And that particular kind of injury is incredibly rare, involving damage to a particular part of the brain, or its failure to develop correctly. Now, I feel that I have to check, but at this point it seems vastly more likely that your problems are psychological in nature. Do you think you could accept that, if the damage I'm looking for doesn't appear on the scan?"

"I think so," Tess said, only frowning a little. This problem had started immediately when her parents left the country, and it wasn't like she'd suffered a head injury or anything. She was already pretty sure that there was some kind of emotional problem behind what was happening to her, and knew that she was clinging desperately to any chance of a different answer. That opinion had been reinforced when she mentioned that she was going to see Dr Lutwa. Gabby hadn't seemed to care, but she could sense a faint disapproval from Ffrances, as if the psychiatrist thought that she was looking in the wrong place for a solution.