Sapphire Eyes ~ 10 Chapter Challenge

Two Days After the Letter ~ Deb, Miri, and Nora

Late ~ Deb

I check my watch again. They are five minutes late. But it's only five minutes. Maybe they're almost here. To distract myself, I open up the Skyward app on my phone and go to the gradebook to see if Mirna turned in any missing work. Of course, she didn't. I roll my eyes, wondering why I'm surprised. That girl hasn't cared about her schoolwork since the accident. Nothing I do can change that.

I take some laps around the giant deserted waiting room for a while, perfectly content to get in some exercise and relieve some stress.

Finally, when I check my watch again, I see that my patient Lisa is now fifteen minutes late. I go behind the counter, wake the computer up, and look up Lisa's number.

I dial and listen to the phone ring. She picks up. "Hello?"

"Hi, this is Dr. Horton. Is this Lisa?"

"Yes, we're caught in traffic, but we're on our way. Sorry for the delay," she says.

"I understand. See you soon." I hang up and immediately pull my cell phone out, realizing that I never called Mirna to see if she made it home okay. The phone rings and rings and rings and then goes to voicemail. I hang up, not bothering to leave a message, and instead I shoot her a quick text: Will be late tonight. Sorry! Work on your missing homework please.

I take a few more laps around the empty waiting room, trying not to think about what it could mean that Mirna didn't answer her phone. She's fine, I tell myself. I spot a car through the window. It pulls into the parking lot and parks in a spot.

I go hold the door open for them to come in. Lisa and her husband shake my hands and thank me for rescheduling their appointment.

"Of course! I had to reschedule because I got a new patient with multiple daily seizures and he's having an EEG on Wednesday. He's only sixteen, and I feel like I can really make a difference in his life, you know?"

"That's so kind of you," Lisa says.

I take them back to my office and we have a seat. Lisa hands me her seizure calendar and I peruse the details. Her seizure activity is slightly better since the dosage tweak, but my goal has always been absolute seizure control. Three seizures a week is still way too many.

"Alright. We need to make some decisions," I say, looking up at them. "We can try an add-on drug. There are a few that go well with Briviact and might stop the generalized seizures. Or we can stop the Briviact completely and try a different regiment that should control your partials and generalized seizures about as well, and then we can tweak it once we see how you do."

Lisa and her husband look at each other.

"Please feel free to talk it over as long as you need to. I'm right here if you have any questions."

"Will she need any more tests?" her husband asks.

"I don't think so. The last test told me everything I need to know. Lisa has generalized seizures as well as partial seizures. We have plenty of options. We have a list of the medications that will work. We've only tried the first option. It's been a month, which is long enough in my opinion to see if this particular med will help enough. In my opinion, we either need to add on another drug, or try an all new regimen."

Lisa nods. "Which would be easier?"

"Adding on another drug," I say. "Unfortunately, there are many drugs that interact with Briviact, including your old medication, so we only have a few options. And your side effects will increase. There's nothing we can do about that." I hand over a prepared list of medications. "Please take your time to look at all these and let me know what you would like to do."