Dr. Brown had been our family doctor for as long as I could remember. After sitting in the waiting room a few minutes, his nurse led us to a mustard-yellow exam room with pictures of fish on the walls. Now that we were here, I couldn't seem to keep still. I sat down, drummed my fingers against my thighs, stood up, looked at the pictures without really seeing them, and sat down again.
The door opened and Dr. Brown came in. He'd always been super thin and serious, and he always managed to take charge the moment he walked in a room. He smiled at my mom and shook my hand before taking a seat on his rolling stool.
"Well, Parker, we haven't seen you in a while." He bent over my chart and all I could see were the short brown hairs on top of his head. "With teenage boys, that's usually a good thing. What brings you in today?"
I crossed my arms over my chest. "I'm having trouble sleeping."
"That isn't all," Mom said. I wished again that she'd agreed to stay in the waiting room. "He's been losing weight."
Dr. Brown glanced at me and back at the chart. "Teenage boys tend to fluctuate a lot. You play soccer still?"
I nodded.
"I can give you some sleeping pills to help get your body back into a regular rhythm, but I don't want you taking them for very long. And you need to make sure you're eating enough to keep up with the exercise." He glanced at his watch and back to my chart.
"Okay," I said, trying not to sound as frustrated as I felt. Of course I'd tried sleeping pills. Over-the-counter, but still, they made the exhaustion so much worse. I'd be so groggy I could barely walk straight the next day. This wasn't going to get us anywhere, and I couldn't ask him anything with Mom in here. What a waste of time.
Dr. Brown squinted at me for a moment before turning back to Mom. "There's a new insurance form I'd like you to fill out while I chat with Parker. Just to make sure there isn't anything else going on, if that's okay with both of you?"
Mom glanced at me and I nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine, Mom. Go ahead."
She stood and followed the doctor into the hall. I tried to prepare myself. I'd only have a few minutes alone with him. I was sure he had his own reasons for getting rid of Mom, but that didn't matter. When he came back, I had to control the conversation.
When Dr. Brown stepped back in the room, he handed me a pamphlet: Drugs and the Teenage Mind. I groaned and shook my head.
"I'm not accusing you of anything, but when you've been a doctor as long as I have, you learn to read the signs." Dr. Brown had kind eyes. They were sympathetic, compassionate . . . but it didn't change the fact that he was as wrong about me as everyone else. "You know that any drugs you put in your system can affect your sleep patterns as well?"
I looked him straight in the eye and sighed. "Okay fine, let's say that I am on drugs that are keeping me from sleeping."
His bushy brown eyebrows shot up. Clearly not the response he'd been expecting. "What are you on?"
"I didn't admit anything, and it doesn't matter." I shook my head and leaned forward, my elbows resting on my knees. "What I need to know is, what happens to a person's brain when they don't sleep?"
Dr. Brown shook his head. "Don't sleep at all?"
"Yes."
"Well, first they'd be tired, irritable, emotional, obviously." Dr. Brown shrugged, but he was watching my reactions closely. "And then there'd be tremors as the brain experienced stutters in its control of the body. Eventually the body would collapse from exhaustion and the problem would be fixed for the time being."
YOU ARE READING
Insomnia
Mystery / Thriller"It's been four years since I slept, and I suspect it is killing me." Instead of sleeping, Parker Chipp spends each night trapped in the dream of the last person he's made eye contact with. Every night he is crushed by other people's fear and pain...
