we going?”
“The Works on Dempster.”
“Sounds good. What time.”
“Noon?”
“Uhh…make it 12:30.”
“See you then.”
At that point, Alvina walked by, heard her daughter talking through the bedroom door, and said, “Betty, are you coming out?”
“Be right there, Mom.”
“Come to the kitchen. How about a late breakfast.”
“I’m meeting Steve for lunch at The Works…12:30, so I better not eat now. I’ll be down in a minute.” Betty knew her anxious mother would be waiting to give her a physical exam with her eyes. She vowed to be patient with her worried mother.
When Betty sat down at the kitchen table, Alvina started right in. “You look good this morning, is everything all right?”
I’m perfect, mom,” she answered.
“I know you’re perfect. I knew that in the delivery room 18 years ago. What I want to know is if you feel good now and if there’s anything you’re not telling me.”
Betty sighed. “Everything there is to know about me, you heard yesterday. I’m thinking that some of those symptoms could be due to the stress (see appendix 1) of final exams, the prom, deadlines I have from school, getting ready for college, all that stuff.”
Alvina’s eyebrows lifted and she nodded her head. “You could be right, Betty. The magazines are full of articles about stress and what it can do and how to control it. In fact one article I read called it the number one cause of medical problems. What do I know? I still have these magazines laying around, so I’ll look for them and give them to you.”
“If you find them, put them in my room and I’ll look at them after finals. Ok, mom, I’m going to meet Steve.”
Alvina said, “Thank him again from us for taking such good care of you yesterday.”
“I will, Mom.”
By the time Betty arrived at The Works, Steve had already ordered a gyros sandwich for himself and a Tuna sandwich for Betty, their usual fare. That, with a shared order of French fries and two drinks, was their favorite meal. The Greek team of food preparers was the most efficient around; providing rapid service no matter how many patrons were present, and there were usually many. They had been in the same location for at least thirty years.
“My mom wanted me to be sure to tell you thanks again for helping me last night.”
“Tell your mom she’s welcome and I’m ready to help whenever I can.”
“She’ll be glad to hear that. I decided that maybe my weird symptoms are stress. Maybe I don’t know how to handle all the stresses; prom, finals, college. I think I worry too much. I probably inherited some of that from my mom. Anyhow, I think she agreed with me because she said that she’s been reading about stress in magazines and that stress is the cause of lots of troubles,” reported Betty.
“From what little I know, she’s right about that. According to what I read, it’s the number one cause of heart trouble and high blood pressure. I guess you have to learn how to handle it. I hope you’re right, because that’s better than a lot of weird diseases I read about that can’t be controlled. Are you ready for finals?” asked Steve.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
CHAPTER 5
But was she ready for final exams? Although her symptoms persisted all through her periods of studying, she chose to keep that information to herself, knowing that her mother was such a worrier. Sudden fatigue persisted at about the same level, mild headaches occasionally returned, and twice she found herself unable to verbalize. Her thought again was—I bet this goes away after finals. In the meantime she looked up stress and became fascinated to learn that there was intense physiology involved in the stress reaction: the autonomic nervous system not under conscious control; and a part of the brain—hypothalamus; and the endocrine system especially the pituitary and the adrenal glands.
She became fascinated with the subject of stress and wanted to learn more, but now, during finals, she elected to defer it, especially since she began to have trouble concentrating, things seemed more difficult, and her head felt “funny,” like “something was going on up there.”
She didn’t do as well as she usually did, getting about three points less, on average, than she had in the past, but still good enough not to appreciably affect her overall grade point average. She got mostly B’s, some A’s and a rare C in her four year career, her overall average being about 3.2.
But high school was over finally, and I bet the stress goes away now, she thought to herself. But she didn’t have a chance to find out. The day after the finals, she slept late, rested most of the day and went to a movie with Steve that night. The next day she drove alone to the Golf-Mill shopping center after lunch—and woke up after dark lying on a Lutheran General hospital bed in the Emergency Department with a bandage around her head, an intravenous drip going into her left forearm, a white-coated young doctor at her side, a nurse working at a counter, her hand wringing mother, a sad-faced father and Steve sitting in chairs around her bed.
The enormity of this change was more than she could initially grasp: this is a dream, she thought..., or is this reality? She finally said, “What happened? I’m in a hospital.”
“You were in an automobile accident, you hit a light pole,” said the young doctor as Steve and Ezra stood up while Alvina separated her wringing hands to cross herself.
“I’m Doctor Switzer. The accident caused you to hit your head. You’ve got a large bump up there and you’ve been in and out of consciousness. The good news is we did a CT scan of your head and it’s negative; no fractures, nothing abnormal. I did a general and neurological examination, as best as I could when you were unconscious, and everything seemed normal. Do you remember what happened?” he said as Alvina, listening with bulging eyes crossed herself again and again.
“No I don’t have a clue. All I know is the last thing I remember is driving down Golf Road and then I woke up here.” She shook her head.
At this point in the discussion, Steve who had been fidgeting as if he was anxious to contribute said, “She’s been falling asleep at the drop of a hat lately, doctor, and I’m not talking just about bedtime. She fell asleep on a couch prom night.”
Turning to Betty, Dr. Switzer said, “Do you think you fell asleep this morning when you were driving, Betty?”
“I suppose it’s possible, but I can’t believe I did. Don’t people who fall asleep at the wheel usually do that after they’ve been driving for hours and hours. If I was on Golf Road, I was only in the car a few minutes, and I wasn’t tired, that’s for sure.” But then she had an afterthought and said, “What happened to my car, by the way?”
“Don’t worry, Betty,” said Ezra, “there was some front end damage and we had it hauled away and it’s going to be fixed up good as new. The main thing is that you’re okay.”
Dr. Switzer said, “Well, the fact that you’re awake
