After the first hospitalization, I had a test.
Close my eyes. Put my hands out in front of me. Palms forward. Watch (Well, Kara watched… I kept my eyes closed).
If my hands started twitching, it meant my ammonia was rising.
One day I did the test. My hands twitched.
Not again. That's what I remember thinking.
The first time, I had been too confused to understand what was happening.
This time I knew.
I knew what losing my mind felt like. And I knew it was happening again.
Eventually, I was in the back of another ambulance.
The driver started asking me questions.
Basic questions. Questions I should have been able to answer without thinking.
But I struggled.
Sometimes I couldn't come up with an answer. Other times I answered and immediately second-guessed myself.
Was that right?
At one point, I looked toward the back of the ambulance.
There were big red digital numbers.
I asked the driver what they were measuring.
“Time,” she said with an inquisitive look in my direction.
It was the clock.
I was looking at the time and couldn't understand what I was looking at.
I knew enough to know that I should know.
That's probably the best way I can describe what it felt like. I wasn't completely gone.
I was still there enough to recognize that something was wrong.
But I couldn't trust my own brain.
The first time, I didn't know enough to be afraid. The second time, I did.
After the first hospitalization, I kept asking: Will it happen again?
Now I had my answer.
Yes. And that changed something.
The first time could have been a fluke, a strange occurrence that happened once.
The second time took that comfort away.
This wasn't something that had happened.
It was something that could happen.
Again. And again.