49: Shocking

The alarm rings, shattering me out of my normal sleep. I rise groggily and look around the room, lit dimly by the streetlights filtering through the blinds. I look towards the clock. “Shit”, I say aloud - startling my cats, “The clinical trial! I have to get on the road.” Hastily throwing on some clothing, I make my way to the car and begin my two hour drive to the treatment center. It’s a relatively easy drive, and I make good time. The GPS guides me to the address - a dilapidated old mansion on the outskirts of the city. Not quite what I was expecting. I park in the dust filled lot, and make my way to the front door, which opens when I push on it.

With a loud creaking noise, the door swings wide to show me the interior of a worn and dated waiting room - now completely empty. There is no check in desk, nor are there any of the normal pamphlets or posters one would usually see in a medical office. The door crashes shut behind me with a disturbing finality. I am standing still in the center of the room wondering what to do when an interior door opens and a small man wearing scrubs walks out. He is holding a clipboard, which he looks at as he addresses me. “Mr… Ter…tw…terwl..?” he stutters questioningly. I bail him out.

“Terwilliger. Sean. Hi!” I say brightly. “I’m here for the trial? The low voltage stimulation trial?”

“Yes,” he says. “The low voltage…” at this a weird smirk crosses his face, and quickly recedes back to his normal impassive stare “trial…” He steps closer and looks me up and down. “Good…good…” he mutters, and glances again at his clipboard. “We have some…” again he looks down at the clipboard “forms for you to fill out, Mr. Terlingar. If you don’t mind…” he thrusts the clipboard at me along with a well-chewed mostly unsharpened pencil, and gestures vaguely towards an old wooden chair in the corner of the room. I sit and begin the form, which is a well used and frequently erased copy of the standard MOCA test, which you are not supposed to fill out yourself. Nevertheless, I fill it out, scoring quite well, I think, and present it back to him. He glances at it and nods.

“Hmmmm. Interesting. Very well, come with me.” He turns and opens the door from which he had come, which leads down a dark flight of stairs. He looks back at me. “Hang on to the handrail. There are some loose boards!”. It is now that I wonder if I’m in the right place at all. But I dutifully follow along, and begin the climb down the creaky staircase.

At the bottom of the stairs, there is but a single, well padded door, which is currently slightly ajar. He walks through it, motioning for me to follow, which I do - albeit somewhat trepidatiously. The room contains only a single, sturdy wooden chair, facing an old console TV - the kind that one might have watched the moon landing on back in 1969. A huge piece of furniture with a tiny 8 inch black and white screen. He points me to the chair, and I sit. He leaves the room and I am alone for a time, until through the door comes a man wearing cracked glasses and a stained lab coat.

“I am…” he starts, unceremoniously, “the… researcher… who will perform the experim… clinical trial on you. I will inform you on the… rules now.” He goes on to explain that I will be shown several pictures on the screen and that my job is only to remember which one I have “in memory” and which one is incorrect. I will make these choices by tapping a button on the armrest of the chair - left for right, and right for wrong. At a point during the testing, they will apply a slight (again, the odd smirk) current through my skull, which may or may not affect reasoning and memory. The goal is to get as many correct guesses as possible. That seems simple and I agree to continue. The first step is to place dozens of sensors on my head to monitor brain wave activity and conduct the electricity. And then we’re ready to go. The researcher (I still don’t know his name) asks me to lay my arms on the armrests with my fingers on the buttons on each side. I do, and immediately there is a snapping noise, as two rusty metal rings snap down firmly holding my arms in place. I am unable to move and begin to panic.

“Don’t worry,” he says cheerfully, “this is just to make sure there’s no… cheating! It is important you be still so as not to disrupt the… brain waves analysis.” He approaches and wraps a band around my head, securing me to the back of the chair. “Again, just to be sure none of the leads fall off and that you only look at the screen in front of you.” I’m quite uncomfortable now, but cannot move. At this point, the door opens again, just behind the screen, and the first man, who I notice now has a large hump on his back - was that there before? I don’t remember… - comes in and immediately stands to my rear, where I can see only his vague reflection in the monitor. He has a large power switch in his hand.

“After a few attempts,” the researcher says, “Igor… um, I mean Fred here will… apply the uh… low (again, that weird and oddly unsettling smirk) voltage to see if… um… you remember better. You understand? DO YOU???“ he suddenly screams, frothing slightly at the lip…”you will…” I hear him mutter as he turns away, “you will…” I hear …Fred… snicker behind me and begin to sweat. The researcher notices, and makes a gesture. Immediately, the door opens and an attractive, dark haired woman wearing an extremely low cut nurses uniform enters, and walks up to me. Smiling sweetly, she takes a cloth and begins to dab at the sweat on my brow.

“Don’t worry so, sweetheart,” she murmurs, “The sweat only makes it more… conductive…” Sadly, I can’t turn my head to look at her, or nod my understanding. She finishes dabbing the sweat off, and then - suddenly - crams the dirty sweaty cloth into my mouth. “So you don’t bite your tongue, dear” she says as she steps off into the corner, again just out of my peripheral vision.

The monitor flickers on with the rolling of images that I haven’t seen in many years. “Let us begin the… experim… clinical trial, shall we?” says the researcher. Immediately, a picture of a house pops up on the screen. Followed shortly by another image of a house, but a different one. I press the right button, and the researcher nods. “Good… Good” he says, and this is followed by an onslaught of images, both similar and different, rapidly going faster, with me frantically hitting the left and right buttons until…

The images stopped coming. The researcher came over and said “Very good. Next we will try your memory with the… low (one more time with the smirk) voltage stimulation to see if it enhances your memory.” That’s why I’m here, I guess, submitting myself to this odd situation - all in the name of science, right? “Let’s begin again!”

Immediately the images start showing on the screen, this time at a frenetic pace. I’m not even capable of hitting the button, whether it be right or wrong, with such speed. Slowly …Fred… starts to move to the front - into my field of vision, holding the power switch with one hand, while the other is fixed to the antique looking lever that will obviously engage whatever is supposed to happen. My mouth is dry behind the very wet cloth. I hear a shout:

“WRONG!!!”

And …Fred.. throws the switch and a massive jolt of electricity courses through my body, causing it to stiffen and shake uncontrollably. The pain is immense and lasts for about 10 seconds. The image on screen slows and stops. I push the left button.

“Correct!” says the researcher… and the test begins again in earnest. After about 3 images, I hear the dread word again!
“WRONG!!!”

…Fred… once again, throws the switch, driving my body into paroxysms of agony, during which I spit the cloth out of my mouth and scream loudly. The pain stops, and the images begin again. This time, I hit the right button, and it is correct.

“You see, …Fred… it seems as though a little low… (this time a full throated maniacal laugh) voltage stimulation helps the memory greatly. Our experiment is a complete success! Still… I think a few more hours will provide us with much more quality fun… um I mean data! Shall we begin again?” And the researcher, …Fred… and the unnamed woman all laugh together as I fade to black…

And that, friends, is the story (not) of my most recent clinical trial experience.

Forgive me.

In reality, I did have the second session of the low voltage trial mentioned in the last post, and while it did cause some minor discomfort - pin-pricks really - it bore no relation to the fantasy related above. It was interesting though, that while under the electrical stimulation, I scored 100% correct every time - but I doubted my choices constantly. I was surprised every time I got a correct answer. I mentioned this to the young man doing the exam and he was quite interested in that. It seems that the brain centers that manage memory and confidence are different and it might be possible that even though the stimulation was making my memory stronger, it was disrupting my confidence area. That’s fascinating to me, and was to him as well. I go back in just over a week to do it all again (it will be reported with far less drama next time, thank you!) and now they’ll be on the lookout for this as well. I’m happy to be a novel subject!

The final, and quite fun, note of the day is that the podcast I was recorded for is available for your listening pleasure. It came out quite well, I think. HERE is the link to the podcast on Spotify (you do NOT need to sign up for Spotify, or download any apps to listen).

Also, I was a guest speaker (via zoom) at a staff meeting of the Alzheimer’s Association, discussing my efforts to raise funds for the WALK. It went quite well, and I was happy to do it. I have a couple of other interesting opportunities in the hopper, and I’ll report on them when I know more. In the meantime,

Thanks for reading,

Dy.