Chapter 2 - My Recovery Had Been Going Backward
Seven months earlier, I could walk.
Then a delivery truck crossed the center line on a wet Connecticut road.
I remembered headlights.
Airbags.
Then a hospital ceiling.
My pelvis fractured.
Two vertebrae were damaged.
My right leg required surgery.
Doctors told me recovery would be long.
They did not tell me I would necessarily remain in a wheelchair.
In fact, by month three, I had begun standing with parallel bars.
By month four, I could transfer without assistance.
Then something changed.
I became exhausted.
My balance deteriorated.
Some mornings I could barely focus during therapy.
My blood pressure occasionally dropped.
I slept through appointments.
I forgot conversations.
Bridget called it post-accident fatigue.
Mom called it my body demanding patience.
I believed them.
Now I sat in my breakfast room wondering whether my body had been fighting something else.
Diane drove the samples personally.
She was my older sister by five years and a registered nurse practitioner who had reduced her hospital hours after my accident to help coordinate my home recovery.
Bridget hated that.
She said Diane treated the mansion like a clinic.
Diane said Bridget treated prescriptions like suggestions.
I thought both women were territorial.
So I stayed out of it.
Another mistake.
While we waited for results, I called my rehabilitation physician.
“Could any of my current medications be liquid?”
“No.”
“Anything that would be put into juice?”
“No.”
“What about vitamins?”
“Your supplements are tablets.”
I looked toward Bridget.
She was standing at the other end of the breakfast room with her attorney already on the phone.
That bothered me too.
Most innocent people ask what is happening before they ask who should represent them.
Then Sophie crawled into my lap as carefully as she could.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Are you gonna sleep now?”
I felt my chest tighten.
“What do you mean?”
“After juice.”
Bridget spun around.
“Sophie, enough.”
I raised my hand.
“No.”
Sophie looked at me.
“Tell Daddy.”
She touched my cheek.
“You drink breakfast and get sleepy.”
Children notice patterns adults explain away.
“How many times?”
She held up fingers.
Counting at four was approximate.
“Lots.”
I looked at Bridget.
She stared back.
That afternoon, the preliminary laboratory report arrived.
The juice contained a sedating medication.
Not a toxin designed to kill me.
Not some exotic poison.
A medication with legitimate medical uses.
But it was not part of my morning prescriptions.
And according to my physician, I had no current order authorizing it in liquid form.
The white bottle contained the same substance.
Diane read the report twice.
Then looked at me.
“This could explain the daytime sleepiness.”
“How much?”
“Enough that we need your doctor to interpret it properly.”
I appreciated that.
No dramatic guesswork.
No pretending a lab number told us everything.
Then my doctor reviewed it.
His conclusion was careful.
The exposure was unlikely to have been immediately lethal.
But repeated undisclosed dosing could interfere with balance, cognition, blood pressure, rehabilitation, and fall risk.
I stared at my wheelchair.
For months, every setback had been blamed on my injuries.
Now I had to ask whether some of those setbacks had been manufactured.
Then Diane said:
“Daniel, there’s another problem.”
“What?”
She had checked my prescription history.
Someone had picked up a compounded version of that medication three times.
Using my information.
May you like
The authorized pickup person was Bridget Carter.
My wife.
