Helen recorded the episode in the chart, pen hovering at the diagnosis line. Unstable motor response? No, that wasn’t it. The tremor didn’t feel purely neurological; it felt like memory trying to surface and drowning halfway. She watched his chest rise and fall, thinking, He’s not just waking—something is trying to get through.
The days that followed blurred into half-sounds and broken syllables. He drifted between lucidity and delirium, eyes flickering as if watching something collapse behind them. Helen jotted any coherent fragment she caught: “heat…,” “vent….” Each piece felt like part of a sentence that refused to finish.