The Awakening Read Online Free PDF Page B

before the doctor answered.  “That is cause for concern, any vision changes are.  Are you free to come in for a second MRI?  I realize your job is a busy one, but I want to make sure we don’t need to move on this more quickly.”
                  Ben shoved down the panic threatening to consume him and he cleared his throat.  “I’m free.  When do you want me in?”
                  “Now,” the doctor said immediately.  “I’m going to clear a space for you.  Try and get here in the next twenty minutes.”
                  “Alright,” Ben said and hung up.  He sent another quick message to his boss, Sorry on a personal emergency, will call as soon as I can .  He turned his phone on to silent, went down stairs with his glasses in his pocket and got into his car.
                  “Okay,” Ben said to himself as he started up the engine.  “I’m okay.”  He mentally checked to make sure he was feeling fine, no dizzy spells, no warning signs of a seizure, and though his body wanted to drop down into a full blown panic attack, Ben forced himself to stay calm and drive.
                  The doctor’s office was busy, but when Ben gave his name, they called him back immediately.  The nurse hooked him up to an IV this time, telling him something about a dye being injected into his body to get a better reading. 
                  Feeling exposed in his gown, Ben lay down on the table and counted to twenty as the nurse started the medication.  It was a strange feeling, like heat rushing through his body.  When it passed through his middle, he panicked, thinking he was going to lose control of his bladder, but a few moments later, it passed and he was fine.
                  The MRI took an hour, and even though he’d slept for longer than he had in years, Ben still dozed off, and woke startled when a loud voice through a speaker told him it was over.  Groggily, Ben sat up and allowed the nurse to remove the needle from his arm.
                  “Doctor Burke asked for the results to be sent straight to his office, and he’ll be in touch the moment he learns something,” she said in her nasal voice.
                  Mutely, Ben nodded and waited on the bed until the room was empty so he could change.  He wasn’t sure what was going on, or why this was happening, but he knew that if he didn’t get some straight answers soon, he was going to go mad.
     
    ~*~
     
                  “Surgery,” the doctor said later that evening when he called Ben.  “I found something very odd on this MRI image and I need to schedule you for an exploratory surgery sooner than originally planned.  I’ll be performing it with one of the state’s top neurologists, and the procedure should take about two hours.  You’ll need to clear your schedule for a few weeks, mind you, to ensure proper recovery.”  Simple, to the point, and absolutely no information to ease Ben’s fear.  He wrote down the date on a small pad sitting on his low coffee table, and mumbled as polite a goodbye as he could muster right then.
                  He stood there in the middle of the living room floor when the line from the doctor’s office had gone dead.  He wasn’t sure what to think or how to move forward, and his feet felt oddly rooted to the ground, like he’d been cemented there.
                  Worse.  It could be worse than before.  Maybe better, a small voice inside Ben’s head piped up, but he ignored it, too afraid to let himself have hope. 
                  Ben wiggled his toes, testing to see if he actually could move his feet, and he felt the carpet shifting under his weight.  His smaller toes went in between the little threads, down towards the plush cushioning beneath.  His hand began to tingle, and Ben realized he was still holding the phone so tightly that he’d