The Brain-Jacked Chronicles
The Too Successful Experiment
By Melanie Brown
Copyright © 2004
Part 1
A lone figure silhouetted against the bright
university lights walked slowly from the MedicalResearchCenter, hands in his pockets, eyes on the ground. After a
moment, he stopped and vainly searched the sky for stars which were almost
completely obliterated by the glare of the city’s lights.
Minutes passed and a second figure appeared. “Frank,
what are you doing out here, man? You should be celebrating with the rest of
our staff. That was the most brilliant surgery I’ve ever seen performed.”
“The mouse died, Sam. It’s not much of a success if
the experiment fails.”
“Frank, that mouse lived long enough to show that you
had correctly reconnected the nerves in the spinal column. The mouse body
responded correctly to the commands of the transplanted brain. In my book,
that’s a success.”
“Maybe. I just don’t feel right about this.” said
Frank as he still searched vainly for a star. “I think this time Sam, we
really are playing God.”
“Frank, we’re doctors. We are God.”
* * *
Five months later…
I was late for a business meeting. I really hate
these out of town meetings even if I arrive right on time. This one was
especially important and I was trying to look up something on the laptop
computer sitting next to me while talking to the home office on the cell phone.
Being distracted like that caused me to miss one minor
little detail, like the furniture falling off the back of the pickup truck in
front of me. I made a quick hard turn to the left to avoid the couch now lying
in the middle of the left lane. The turn was too much and I skidded across the
median right into the path of an on-coming tractor-trailer rig.
Mind racing, everything seemed to move in slow motion
as I fought to regain control of my rental car. As I saw that Kenworth grill
about to contact the front of my car, my last thought before everything went
black was, “Christ! I’m going to die!”
* * *
At first, I didn’t think I was really hearing a
sound. A moment passed and the sound came once more. Suddenly it became
almost clear and I heard, “Mr. Shepherd? Can you hear my voice? Are you able
to respond?”
I tried to open my eyes and failed. I tried to raise
my hand and I couldn’t. I tried to speak, but found I couldn’t make any noise
at all. I finally opened my eyes and saw a nurse leaning over me.
“Sir? Can you understand me? Do you think you could
answer a few questions?” She took my left hand and continued, “If you can, tap
on my hand once for ‘no’ and twice for ‘yes’.”
I tried, but I still couldn’t speak. So instead, I
tapped on her hand twice.
“Very good, Mr. Shepherd. There’s a doctor waiting
who has some questions for you. I’m going to video tape the interview so we
can verify your answers later.”
A man in his mid-thirties’, who looked more like a
lawyer than a doctor approached me. He was holding several forms.
“Mr. Shepherd“, he began, “I’m Dr. Wilkins, the doctor
over the TraumaCenter here at the hospital. I’m going to be frank, Mr.
Shepherd. It’s a miracle you are still alive. Your legs and right arm were
severed in the accident. You have suffered massive internal injuries. These
machines behind you are the only things keeping you alive at the moment. I
know this sounds brutal and…insensitive…but for the proposal I’m about to make
you, I feel you deserve to know exactly what your situation is.”
The nurse made a motion to the doctor as she looked at
my face. She said, “I know that all sounds pretty scary, sir, but you do need
to try to relax. You need to be able to focus on what Dr. Wilkins is saying
and understand him.
Dr. Wilkins cleared his throat and continued, “And
what is your situation? Quite frankly, no matter what we try to do, there is
over a ninety-five percent probability you will not live past eighteen and
thirty-six hours.”
Great Mother of God. I can’t describe how I felt when
I heard those words. A cold wash of despair flowed through my body.
Dr. Wilkins went on, “However, there is one, extremely
thin chance for your survival, which is what I’m here to discuss. A medical
research team would like for you to volunteer for an experimental surgery
technique. In all honesty, you will probably not survive the operation. But it
is at least one small chance. Without it, you have no chance. If you want to
volunteer, however, you must do so now. They have a very narrow window of
opportunity considering how severe your injuries are.”
I thought about that. If I took the surgery, whatever
it was, gave me only a narrow chance at survival. Not taking it gave me no
chance. But what if they’re wrong? What if I would have lived, but took an
option that killed me? Doctors have been known to be wrong before.
I pulled my left hand away from the nurse and tried to
feel my right arm. I felt the stump at the elbow. I tried to reach down to my
legs. It was difficult. There was something in my way, but my body seemed to
end at my trunk. I felt as much as I could across my lower body. There seemed
to be something else missing the doctor didn’t mention.
The doctor coughed and said, “Yes, Mr. Shepherd, your
genitals were so badly mangled we had to remove them. I probably should also
mention the nature of the experimental surgery.” There was a pause and then he
said, “I know what this sounds like, but they have had some success with
animals. The surgery involves transplanting the brain from one individual to
another.”
What the hell?! That’s the stuff of Science Fiction
and horror movies. You can’t transplant brains…can you? The world’s only
living brain donor…
The doctor must have read my facial expressions. He
said, “I know that sounds rather fantastic. This hospital is affiliated with
the university and they have been doing experiments there. You have been
giving a great opportunity. We just happen to have you with a damaged body but
healthy brain and another individual with a healthy body and a dead brain here
at the same time. The family had asked that all life support measures be
removed from that individual. When we asked them, they agreed to donate the
body to science. That person will officially die today.”
This is just plain crazy I thought. They can’t really
be serious can they? I looked from the nurse to the doctor, trying to read
their faces.
“Mr. Shepherd, I can try to keep you alive until they
are ready for the surgery in a few hours. But honestly, sir, by this time
tomorrow, unless some miracle happens, you will not be alive.” Dr. Wilkins
certainly sounded sincere.
I thought about it for a few more moments. Did it
really make a difference if I died during an experimental operation versus
dying in a few hours anyway? If I do the operation, maybe at least something
good might come of my death. I waved my remaining arm in a manner to suggest
they approach.
The nurse took my hand as before. The doctor asked,
“Have you made a decision?”
I tapped, “Yes.”
Dr. Wilkins paused a moment then asked, “Do you wish
to elect the experimental surgery?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you Mr. Shepherd. The nurse here will help you
sign these documents. I know it won’t be very easy. We’ll try to make you as
comfortable as we can as you wait for the operation. Good day.” Dr. Wilkins
turned slowly and left the room.
* * *
Dr. Frank Gordon’s office door suddenly flew open.
Dr. Sam Wright burst into the office.
“Frank! Get your stuff together and hurry! I just
got a call from the hospital. They told me they have two excellent candidates
for our procedure. A fax should be here any minute with their details.”
exclaimed Dr. Wright, almost out of breath.
“Slow down, Sam. Back up a little.” Frank said,
somewhat confused.
“You remember we requested the hospital to notify us
if there were ever any patients that would be good candidates for our brain
transplant procedure. Well, they have one patient who is clinically brain dead
and another whose head is intact after his body was badly mangled in a traffic
accident.” Sam said as he urged his partner to his feet. “Let’s see if the fax
has arrived.”
They both hurried out of Frank’s office into the
central office area where the fax machine resided. The last page of a fax was
just coming out of the machine. Sam snapped up the sheets and began reading.
As he finished one, he’d hand the sheet over to Frank to read.
“Yes, these patients should work out well. The body
donor is young and very healthy, a victim of a brain aneurism. The brain donor
is a more mature individual who should be able to handle the shock of the
transplant.” Sam blurted out as he hurriedly read the faxes.
“Sam, hold on a second”, said Frank. “Look closer at
the personal histories. The body donor is a fifteen year old girl, athletic.
In fact she’s a cheerleader at her high school. She died suddenly this morning
of the aneurism. Her parents have agreed to donate her body to science, which
was the donor’s written desire.”
Sam shrugged, “Yeah, so? Very tragic, I agree, but
what about it?”
Frank frowned, “Sam, the brain donor is a forty-seven
year old software engineer, who served in the military with distinction in two
major conflicts. He won a silver star. Sam, he’s a goddamn war hero and you
want to put his brain into a young girl’s body? You don’t see a problem with
that?”
Sam looked exasperated and said, “Not really. It’s
actually good for the reasons I just mentioned. I think we’d have some
problems going the other way.”
Frank shook his head, “You don’t have a problem with
putting the brain of a grown man into the body of a fifteen year old girl?”
Sam frowned and said, “Frank. You’re the only
micro-surgeon in the world who knows these techniques. Nobody else could pull
this operation off. We’ve been waiting a long time for this opportunity; don’t
start getting ethics on me now.” Sam glowered at Frank for several seconds
before adding, “Besides, he’ll be dead in a day or two after the operation
anyway.”
* * *
I went in and out of consciousness over the next few
hours. I fought desperately to stay awake. I didn’t know when the next breath
would be my last and I didn’t want to waste any of my remaining minutes on this
Earth by sleeping.
The pain killers must have been wearing off as I
started to feel just how much pain my body was in. Until I started feeling it,
I just didn’t realize how bad off I was.
A nurse walked in and injected something into the heplock
stuck in the back of my hand. “This is to get you started on your anesthetic.
It’ll help you to relax. You’ll get a full anesthetic for the surgery.”
It wasn’t as good as the pain killers but it did make
me care a little less about my situation.
I looked around the room. I couldn’t help but think
that I could be seeing the last objects I’ll ever see. What a depressing place
to die. At least they could have placed me near a window so I could watch the
clouds scud across the sky.
Someone stepped into the room, said a few words to the
nurse, then left. The nurse turned towards me and said, “They’re ready for you
now. In just a moment, they’ll be moving you to the operating theater. Don’t
get a big head now…there’s going to be several very important people watching
the procedure.”
Oh just great. I get to have an audience watch me
die. Could this get worse? Can anything be worse than dying?
A couple of guys came and hooked all the machines I
was connected to onto the bed and started pushing me out through the door and
down the hall. I laid there staring straight up, watching the ceiling lights
pass by one after the other. Just before going into the operating room, we stopped
and the nurse said, pointing a man standing by the entrance, “This is Father
Stewart. Would you like a blessing before we go in?”
I never was particularly religious, but I signaled
“Yes.” I figured I could use all the help I could get. The parson said a few
blessings and said a prayer over my broken and near dead body. Instead of
making me feel better, it actually depressed me more as it drove home just how
little time I had left.
They finally pushed me through the last doors. The
operating room was larger than normal with a glassed in balcony looking down
into the room. There were ten to fifteen people seated, watching. If I could
have spoken I would have said to the audience, “We who are about to die, salute
you.”
As the staff busied itself around me, I looked
around. To my left was another figure laying on a bed. It was covered in
sheets and equipment, so I couldn’t get a good look at it. I was certainly
curious about it. Should I live, it would be home sweet home.
A nurse quietly said to me, “You’re fighting the
anesthetic. Please, just relax. We’ll be giving you the general anesthetic in
a few minutes. This is going to be a very long procedure.”
I wanted to relax, but I didn’t want to fall asleep.
I was really afraid I’d wake up dead. I laid there, trying to let my mind
drift. I watched the audience watch me. After a few minutes I heard some more
people come into the operating room.
“Good morning, doctors.” I heard Dr. Wilkins say.
“This is quite a historic moment.”
“Indeed it is, John. Indeed it is,” another voice
said. “My colleague and I have been waiting for quite some time for this
opportunity.”
A third voice said, “John, good to see you again.”
There was a pause then, “Looks like we have a full house.”
Dr. Wilkins said, “Morning Frank. Yes, those are the
ones footing the bill for this experiment of yours. I’ll be frank, Frank.
They’re going to want to see results. No pressure I hope.”
A laugh, then, “No sweat, John. This’ll be a walk in
the park. Where’s Sam? Let’s get started.
I looked over and saw all three doctors walking
towards me. Dr. Wilkins said, “Doctors, I’d like you to meet Mr. James
Shepherd. He has graciously volunteered as a subject for your research.”
“Hello, James. I’m Dr. Gordon,” said one of the
doctors. “I’m a micro surgeon and I’ve done this procedure many times. Just
not on people. Someone has to first James. This time you’re it. I’m not
trying to scare you, so don’t look so worried. I wouldn’t even attempt this if
I didn’t fully believe there was a chance of success.” He shook my remaining
hand and said, “See you in recovery, James.”
The other doctor walked up closer and looked me up and
down. He let out a low whistle and said, “You look like shit, James. I think
you made the right decision.” He walked away.
The equipment was finally all set up and the surgeons
were all scrubbed.
Dr. Wright picked up a electric saw and said to Frank,
“It’s show time!”
* * *
The End of Part 1
since 08/02/04