Echoes of the Heart

got up, moved across the small room, and picked my inhaler and its cap up from the floor. He shook the inhaler, then pressed on it and sent a puff of life-saving medicine into the air.
“Still works,” he relaxed. “I was worried I’d broken it.”
He capped my inhaler then placed it in front of me. I looked from it to him and blinked. “D’you think whatever you’re goin’ to tell me will trigger another attack?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I dunno, maybe.”
My gut clenched. “Just tell me, sir. Please.”
He exhaled another big breath and for a few seconds he said nothing. It frustrated me; I wanted to reach over and shake him until he said whatever it was that needed to be said. The suspense was killing me.
“A couple of months ago,” he began. “I noticed a pattern with your mother.”
“Okay.”
“Nothin’ major, just little things. Forgetful moments.”
I raised a brow. “You noticed she’s been forgetful? She had a stroke three years ago, of course she’s goin’ to be a little forgetful now and then.”
Since her unexpected stroke, she had some problems with her memory as well as having a little difficulty swallowing, but other than that, she had recovered.
“Now and then isn’t a pattern, Frankie. She is forgetful frequently; forgettin’ newly learned information is worryin’.”
I shifted. “How worrying?”
“Worryin’ enough for me to be concerned. A few weeks ago, I made some at-home tests for her, simple memory tests that a child could complete. She got four out of ten questions correct. She couldn’t remember the things I’d asked her to remember over the period of a week and it was a red flag for me. I talked her into havin’ some scans done a week ago.”
“Scans?” I repeated. “What d’you mean?”
“CT, MRI.”
“Right,” I leaned back in my chair. “Brain scans.”
“Yes,” he shifted. “Last week, we got the results.”
“And?”
“And,” he looked down to his hands. “Accordin’ to the scans that were taken, she has a build-up of beta-amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in her brain.”
I scowled. “I don’t know what any of that means, Dr O’Rourke.”
“It’s a diagnosis.”
“A diagnosis of what?”
“Early-onset Alzheimer’s.”
I didn’t know what I was expecting the man to say, but those words were absolutely not it. For a moment, I said nothing and didn’t move, then I huffed a puff of air through my nose as I silently chuckled at the ridiculousness of what I was hearing. It was entirely too insane to even comprehend.
“She’s forty-six.” I shook my head. “She doesn’t have Alzheimer’s. You’re crazy.”
Dr O’Rourke closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his stubbled face. When he lifted his eyelids and looked back at me, I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. The man’s eyes were a bottomless pool of misery. He was hurting.
“No,” I practically snapped, all traces of humour vanishing. “D’you hear yourself? Alzheimer’s? That is an elderly disease. She doesn’t have that.”
“It’s more common in people older than sixty-five, but a lot people below that age have the disease too. It’s just not as prevalent so ye rarely hear of it, especially in a town as small as ours. People who have suffered from a stroke are at risk of developin’ it.”
I lifted my trembling hands to my face and tried to think. Processing the doctor’s words was like swallowing ground chalk, I couldn’t do it. Risk popped into my head. I needed him. I needed him next to me so I could try and make sense of what Dr O’Rourke was telling me.
“I can’t believe this.” I dropped my hands, not being able to accept what I was hearing as the truth. “There has to be some sort of mistake. A misdiagnosis. That’s what this is. The doctor was wrong.”
“Your ma’s scans have been reviewed by a team of doctors at the hospital, Frankie, as well as specialists in London. They all came to the same conclusion with their diagnosis. It’s Alzheimer’s.”
My body began to shake uncontrollably.
“She’ll have treatment,” I sputtered. “We’ll find the best doctor who specialises in Alzheimer’s and we’ll go from there. She’s young, she’s mostly healthy if you don’t count what happened when she had her stroke. She’ll be fine, she’ll beat this easily.”
“Honey,” Dr O’Rourke frowned deeply. “There is no cure for Alzheimer’s. It is a progressive disease.”
“Shut up!” I jumped to my feet. “Shut the fuck up! You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about! She’ll be fine. D’you hear me? Fine!”
I heard the familiar wheeze as I breathed and felt tightness across my chest, so I grabbed my inhaler and took a puff before breathing became too hard and another attack had me in its clutches. I repeated the step with my inhaler two more times until I had somewhat of a handle on my situation and could breathe easily. I felt sick to my stomach. It’d been a couple of weeks since I’d had such a bad attack, with another looming not long after the first one had ended.
“Honey,” Dr O’Rourke said gently. “I know tellin’ ye to relax is stupid, but what ye need to do is calm yourself all the way down.”
I found myself nodding as I focused on my breathing. I went to my quiet place where I blocked everyone and everything out, and focused on nothing other than breathing in and out. It had taken years of practice to be able to acquire this focus but it helped me massively and had done since I was a young child.
“I know you wouldn’t lie.” I opened my eyes. “But I just can’t believe what you’re tellin’ me.”
Dr O’Rourke grunted. “I’ve been in shock since I found out, but I’ve had a few days to process the news. So has your ma.”
I jerked in response to his words.
“She knows?”
“Of course,” he answered. “I was with her when she got her diagnosis.”
“And she remembers the conversation?”
“Yes. We’ve spoken about it a lot, about how to go forward. Like I said, it is a progressive disease. She isn’t goin’ to just forget every single thing right away. It’s small things right now. Like