Medical Kidnap Files 1-6, page 105
Hannah was too shy to have to play against other schools, and she knew that she needed to get a part-time job to help to pay for her clothes and the other things she wanted. If she were going to do a job and her schoolwork, she didn’t have time for sports too. And she didn’t really want to have to practice and play all the time. She just wanted to do something fun, like when she was a kid.
The room full of exercise equipment looked a bit too much like a torture chamber. Who knew what all of the different machines did. They should know that she was in too much pain to do anything strenuous. If she did too much, it would trigger pain much sooner. She needed to just rest and take things easy. That was what the doctors had told her. Just ease up and if something caused her pain, make sure she didn’t do that. Fae told her that she would heal faster if she rested. And that made perfect sense. Hannah knew that if she did too much when she had been sick, she would relapse again. It had happened before.
The door opened, and a young woman came in. She had a slim, athletic build, long dark hair, and a big smile.
“Hi, Hannah?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s good to meet you, Hannah. I’m Zoe Sadiq, and we’re going to be working closely together. I’m really excited about being a part of your healing team.”
Hannah smiled tentatively. A healing team sounded nice. Certainly better than doctors who came to her bedside at the hospital and scowled at Hannah, acting like she was wasting their time. Just go home and relax. Stop being so dramatic. Rest and everything would be fine.
“So, are you ready to get started?” Zoe made a motion to encompass all of the exercise equipment.
Hannah shook her head. “I think… someone made a mistake. I haven’t seen the doctor yet. I thought I was coming here for him to do an examination and some more testing.”
“You’ll see Dr. Corner later, if he isn’t too busy. He’s already gone over your file and prescribed a program of healing therapy for you.”
“How can he do that without seeing me?”
“We see a lot of people through the clinic. Everyone follows similar programs. The basics are the same, with some adjustments for each individual. As you and I work together, I’ll report back to Dr. Corner with progress and problem areas, and he’ll make the adjustments needed for your program.”
“But I haven’t even seen him,” Hannah pointed out again. How could a doctor make any kind of prescription without seeing her?
“I know. It may seem strange, but it’s not at all unusual here. You’ll have a lot of professionals working on your team, but a lot of them, you’ll never even see. They can read your file and see what has already been discovered and done in the past, and make recommendations based on that. As we do the program, Dr. Corner will make various adjustments. He’s very good at what he does. All of the programs follow the same basic principles.”
Zoe motioned Hannah over to a stationary bike. Hannah got up and shuffled over to it. She didn’t want to cause trouble, but she didn’t want to trigger another episode, either.
“Uh… okay. That sounds good, I guess.”
Hannah climbed up onto the bike seat and grasped the handlebars. She slid her feet into the stirrup pedals. “I can’t do very much. If I do… it will just make things worse.”
“You’re going to have to trust in the program. We know the way pain works better than you do. That’s why we’re here. To teach you and help you.”
“The doctors said I need to be careful what I do. I should get a lot of rest.”
“And have they helped you to heal? Have you gotten better while you’ve been trying to get that rest?”
Hannah frowned. “No.”
“It’s probably been getting worse, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Then they were wrong. Avoiding pain isn’t going to help you, Hannah. Your neurons and your brain have been tricked into believing that you are in pain when you aren’t. They are amplifying the pain you do feel so that it feels much worse than it really is. You are feeling a little bit of discomfort, and your body thinks that you’re in agony. But you’re not.”
Hannah scowled. “I am.”
“That’s what your brain and your neurons are telling you. That’s what you feel. But it isn’t really true. Tell me why we feel pain.”
Hannah shrugged. “Because… your nerve cells tell your brain that you’re in pain.”
“But why? What benefit is there to feeling pain? Wouldn’t life be much better if we never had to feel any pain? We could run without pain, eat without getting a stomachache, stub our toes and not have to worry about it. Why should we feel pain?”
Hannah thought about it. She sat on the bike and thought about her skinned shin and about the scenarios that Zoe had mentioned. Why was it good to feel pain when you did something to hurt yourself? Why was it good to get a toothache? A stomachache? Pain from a bruise?
“I guess… to teach us to avoid the things that damage our bodies. And to tell us to get help when something is wrong.”
Zoe beamed. “Brilliant! Yes, exactly right. You nailed it. But now think about the pain that you get with these attacks. Do they mean that you have a blockage? An infection? A heart attack?”
“No.” Hannah shook her head. “The doctors keep saying that everything is okay. But I am in pain.”
“Yes. Because your neurons have, for some reason, become oversensitized to pain. Maybe you ate too much one night, and instead of getting a bit of a tummyache, it hurt so bad you thought you had appendicitis. And maybe the next time you had gas, it hurt even more. You were trying to calm the pain down, to avoid anything that might trigger another episode of pain, and you were just training your brain to react to less and less pain. You avoid any pain stimulus, anything that might have caused you pain before, and your body keeps trying to tune your pain level, but it’s stuck way up here,” Zoe raised her hand above her head. “Instead of down here, where it’s supposed to be. Everything sends it rocketing way up. You keep trying to avoid it, and that doesn’t work.”
Hannah nodded her agreement. “Okay. So…”
“So how do we reset it?” Zoe asked.
“Yeah.”
“That’s the magic of Dr. Corner’s system. You wouldn’t believe our success rate. When people stick with it and follow his system, they experience a sharp reduction in pain or complete elimination of excess pain. We reset their pain level. But you have to stick with it. You have to do everything we say. If you don’t follow the program, we can’t reset your pain level.”
Hannah swallowed. Could she stick with it? She wanted to be one of those success stories. She wanted to be one of the people who got better. She anticipated from Zoe’s words that it was going to be hard.
“What do I have to do?”
“Here is the thing.” Zoe motioned for Hannah to start pedaling, and she did. This was her opportunity to show Zoe that she was going to do what she was told. That she would believe that rather than triggering another episode of pain that would send her to the hospital, what Zoe showed her would help to reduce the pain. To get rid of it.
Not to get rid of all of her pain, because pain was important. But to get rid of the pain that didn’t mean anything. The pain that her brain was making her feel when there wasn’t any reason for it.
“You have been trying to avoid pain, and that has made you more and more sensitive. So to reverse the process, we need to raise your level of pain and push through it. Your brain will only let you reach a certain level of pain and, if you keep pushing over that level, your brain will reset to a lower level. Like you’re telling it ‘this level of pain is not dangerous. Set it lower.” Zoe smiled.
Hannah stared at her. They wanted to raise her pain level? She shook her head. “No.”
“You’ve been trying to avoid pain. Does that work?”
“No. But there’s something wrong. They need to find out what’s wrong.”
“If there was something wrong, don’t you think they would have figured it out by now? You’ve had all of the tests. All of the examinations and blood panels and imaging. You’ve done it all and all of the doctors agree that there’s nothing wrong.”
“There is.”
“There isn’t.” Zoe shook her head and gave Hannah an encouraging smile. “And that means we need to push through and reset your high tolerance level. Tell your brain ‘this isn’t pain.’”
Hannah stopped pedaling. Zoe cocked her head.
“Pedal. As fast as you can.”
Hannah pedaled faster, but only for a few seconds. Zoe shook her head. Her lips pressed together.
“You can do better than that.”
Hannah sped up and tried to maintain the speed. Her muscles started to burn. The pain quickly eclipsed the pain from her skinned shin. She stopped. She hadn’t exercised like that for a long time. She would stop and get her breath back, and then she would do another burst. She’d try to hold it for longer to show Zoe that she was working hard.
“No,” Zoe said. “I didn’t say you could stop. Push it. Keep pedaling. As fast as you can.”
Hannah started pedaling again. “I’m tired. It’s hard. I haven’t been doing very much lately.”
“No being lazy,” Zoe snapped. “Push it. This isn’t a game.”
Hannah bit her lip, hurt by the therapist’s tone. She put a little extra effort into it, trying to pedal faster. Zoe reached over and punched a button.
Suddenly it was like Hannah was going up a steep hill. Her muscles burned. She couldn’t maintain anywhere near the speed that she’d been able to without the tension.
“Ow, that’s too hard. Put it back down again.”
“Push, Hannah. Work harder. Come on. You need to push past the pain.”
“I can’t!”
The normal muscle burn was turning into something else. It felt like Hannah’s legs were literally on fire. She slowed. Zoe shook her head and made a ‘hurry’ motion with her hands. Hannah stopped pedaling, gasping for breath. Her lungs were starting to burn. Her heart thumped hard in her chest.
“Don’t stop!” Zoe shouted. “Come on. I explained it to you. You need to set a higher threshold. You need to push harder, not to avoid the pain. Embrace it. Welcome the pain, because it means that we’re going to retrain your brain. Don’t you want to be able to live a normal life?”
“Yes.” Tears were starting to run down Hannah’s face. “But I can’t do this…”
“You can! Get your feet moving.” Zoe pressed down one of Hannah’s knees, and then the other, encouraging her to get them moving. “Come on. One, two, one two! Do it fast. Keep pushing.”
“It’s too high. Turn it back down. I could do it where it was before.”
“No. You need to do more. Push harder. Come on.”
Hannah used her hands to push down her legs. Her breath was coming in gasps and sobs. She wasn’t sure whether it was because she was tired or because she was upset at the way Zoe was talking to her. Zoe was supposed to be encouraging her. Helping her. Part of her ‘healing team.’
“Come on, Hannah. Push. This is the weakest effort I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen amputees come in here with a better effort than that. You’re young, healthy, vibrant. You should be able to shoot up that hill. Push it. Push it harder.”
Hannah pushed as fast as she could, but she felt like she was barely moving the wheel. If she were on a real bike in real traffic, everybody would be speeding past her, even the pedestrians and small children. Her lungs were burning. The pain in her stomach had not just begun but had launched like a rocket ship.
“No, I can’t do this. Please.” Hannah sobbed. “It hurts!” She held her arms over her stomach. She was still pedaling, but not for much longer. She was going to fall off of the bike and pass out on the padded floor.
“Thirty more seconds,” Zoe insisted. She looked at her watch and started to count.
Hannah closed her eyes and tried to do it for thirty more seconds. Her legs, stomach, and chest all burned. She wasn’t drawing in any oxygen. She saw black blobs in front of her eyes. She listened to Zoe count and tried to hold it the last few seconds.
Zoe got down to five and then bounced up to ten again.
“Hey!”
Zoe got down to five, and again went back to ten. Hannah gave up. She stopped pedaling and threw herself off of the bike. Her legs buckled beneath her and she landed on the floor. She curled up in a ball, pulling her knees tightly against her stomach.
Zoe was down on the mat beside Hannah.
“No crying. You can do this. You need to be stronger than that. You can’t even go ten minutes without crying and throwing yourself on the floor.”
Hannah snorted snot and tears and didn’t stop crying. Zoe grabbed one of her ankles and pulled her leg out straight. Hannah tried to fold her leg back up, and Zoe yanked harder.
“Don’t fight me. Do what I say.”
Hannah held her arms tightly over her stomach and didn’t protest or jerk back as Zoe pulled her legs straight.
Zoe started to massage the large muscles of her legs. Not a pleasant, rubbing in a circle, gentle massage like her mother did when she was sick or hurt. Nothing comforting about it. Zoe dug her knuckles deep into the already burning muscles, each dig causing excruciating pain. Hannah screamed. She tried to kick or pull her legs away, but Zoe held them still and sat on them. Hannah screamed again as Zoe dug her knuckles into the other leg.
“No! Stop!” Hannah let out a long, incoherent wail of pain. She had never had anyone cause her that kind of pain before.
She tried to roll over away from Zoe, to curl up in a protective ball again, but Zoe wouldn’t let her squirm away.
Hannah turned her head to the side and threw up.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Hannah was not in the waiting room when LaRae got back to pick her up, but in a ‘recovery room’ with a bed and a supervising nurse, something like the nurse’s office at school. Hannah was finally allowed to curl up in a ball and cry; every nerve in her body pulsing with pain. She felt like every inch of her skin had been scraped raw, and then… she’d been dumped in boiling oil and flattened with a steam roller. She had never been in so much pain in her life. Every time she thought she couldn’t possibly do any more or be pushed any further, Zoe had done something else.
She knew that Zoe had given her instructions about what she was supposed to do during the week, but she didn’t remember what she had said. She was supposed to exercise each day, to rub her skin and to deep-massage the muscles as Zoe had done. She wouldn’t be surprised if she were supposed to scourge her back with a little whip, like the nuns she’d seen on a late-night TV show that she wasn’t supposed to have been up watching.
“Hey, Hannah,” LaRae greeted softly. “How is she doing?” she asked the nurse.
“It’s not an easy program to get through,” the nurse said stoically. “She’ll be okay, but it’s a tough go.”
“Can you get up, Hannah? Let’s get you to the car and you can go home.”
“I can’t,” Hannah sobbed.
“Hey, it’s all going to be okay.” LaRae rubbed her shoulder and back gently. “Get yourself up. You can do it.”
“I need painkillers.”
“No painkillers of any kind allowed on the program,” the nurse told her severely. “That would undo all of the work you’ve done here today.”
“I can’t! I can’t even move!” Hannah insisted. “Please. I need something.”
“Nope. Not allowed.”
“How am I supposed to get her to the car?” LaRae asked the nurse.
The nurse wheeled over a wheelchair. “You should be able to walk, but since it’s your first day, we’ll give you a break. Hop in, and I’ll take you to your car.”
Hannah couldn’t hop. She could barely move. Everything, even breathing, was an agony. She longed for her mother to be there and to pick her up and take her to the emergency room.
LaRae was bigger and stronger looking than Fae, but she didn’t make any move to pick Hannah up.
They both waited. Eventually, Hannah moved, inch by painstaking inch, until she transferred herself from the bed to the wheelchair. LaRae helped her to get her coat and winter gear on. Everything rubbed against Hannah’s skin like sandpaper. Like they were trying to rub the skin right off of her.
The nurse got on a coat and pushed Hannah’s wheelchair to the car. Hannah again had to get herself from the wheelchair to the car. The nurse took the wheelchair away. Hannah pulled her seatbelt around herself and latched it into place so that she didn’t have to use her own muscle strength to hold herself upright. She just let her body melt into the seat.
LaRae got in, started the engine, and turned on the heater.
“Take me to the hospital,” Hannah begged.
“You’re going to be okay, kiddo. You’ll be happier at home, where you can relax.”
“No, I need an IV. I need painkillers.”
“You heard the nurse. It isn’t allowed.”
“I’m not going to stay in the program. I can’t do it. It hurts so bad. I can’t.”
“You don’t really have a choice, Hannah.”
Hannah cracked her eyelids open to look at LaRae. “What?”
“That’s the program that DCFS has put you into. That’s what you’re doing.”
“I can’t.”
“You just keep going and do your best. Hopefully, it will help.”
“I threw up. I passed out. I can’t do it!”
“They said that it would get worse before it got better. We just have to keep going.”
“We?”
LaRae looked at her. “You.”
“LaRae… I’m going to die. I can’t do it.”
“You’re not going to die. These people are professionals. They know what they’re doing.”
“Where are we going?” Gabriel asked, looking around. They were out of their usual stomping grounds, but that in itself was not unusual. Renata didn’t like to establish too many habits. If they always stayed in the same place and followed the same routines, then people would know where to find them. If they wanted to stay under the radar, they had to move around regularly—or randomly—and not let themselves fall into any habits.
