My blood pressure spiked at around that point, and D.J. bustled in, shooed Eva out, and shut down all my attempts to ask any more questions about my situation. I only narrowly avoided another plunge into forced sleep by promising I wouldn’t ask any more questions until I’d rested, eaten something, done some physical therapy, and brought my vitals down (or up, depending on which stat) to levels D.J. considered acceptable.

I didn’t like his terms, but I liked being knocked out every time the doc thought I might be getting too emotional even less, so I agreed—and didn’t get to see Eva and ask my million questions until nearly a week later.

I was walking down the research center hallway with a therapist on each side because my neither my muscles nor my balance behaved q...

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