Monday, April 21, 1986

Frank paused anxiously outside Christine’s door, gripped the long-stemmed rose tightly, and took a deep breath before knocking. Whatever she says, I’m going to be patient. It’s my chance to be generous and charitable.

Christine opened the door, wearing a bright yellow and white polo shirt and her favorite jeans. “Hi, lover boy! How are ya?” She threw her arms around him and kissed him passionately. After a second she came up for air. “You miss me?”

Frank’s mouth literally fell open and once again he had the sense of being thrust into an alternative universe. Christine took advantage of his silence for another kiss. Finally Frank recovered enough to say something.

“Angel, are you OK?”

“Never better,” said Christine. “Why?”

“I’m so glad to hear it. You didn’t feel yourself yesterday.”

It turned out she had woken up hungry to the aroma of waffles fixed by her roommate, and ever since she’d felt great. Frank started to apologize for yesterday, but she told him not to worry about it. Christine had already decided she could live with a compromise between what he’d ordered and what she’d thought they needed, and she had already called the printer to change the order. Frank almost asked what it would cost, but thought better of it in time for her to tell him the difference in price and how she’d figured where they could save money to make it fit the budget. He finally started to relax, and she asked him about his morning.

“Christine, you would not believe it. This was the best lecture ever. This M.D./Ph.D. biochemistry-genetics guy from California was here for some conference and knew somebody at BYU so he agreed to give a lecture.” The visitor had talked about a fascinating and horrible condition called Lesch-Nyhan syndrome.

“I’ll skip all the biochemistry stuff; it wouldn’t really interest you anyway, but the fascinating part is that the patients have these compulsive urges to hurt themselves. He showed slides of these poor kids who basically had chewed their fingers off, or had chewed up their lips. A lot of them know they will do it if they are left to themselves so they will actually ask for their parents to tie their hands to their wheelchair or put in a mouth guard or something. Is that crazy? They don’t want to do it but they can’t help it. The hopeful thing is that this is a condition where they actually know what causes it. It all comes from one little base pair being mutated in one of the metabolic genes we all have. One base pair out of all the millions of base pairs in their DNA. That keeps the gene from doing its job, but since we know what it does, it’s possible that they’ll be able to come up with a cure.

“I asked this doctor whether he thought the kids had any ability to stop their self-mutilation, any free will in the matter. I mean, obviously it’s an inherited condition that was determined when they were conceived, and it’s not their fault, but do they have any free agency? I think that’s a fascinating question, whether you can do something about abnormal behavior that is clearly not your fault. He really got into that question. He said in his opinion they had just a small amount of choice, that many of the patients described a brief moment during which they felt they could either ask for help or not ask for help, but once that moment had passed, their control was gone. Anyway, this was one of those moments where I was really excited about being a doctor, and learning about these diseases and even hoping to actually cure people because of knowing what causes them.”

“It sounds like he’s a people watcher and perpetual student too?” asked Christine, happily amused by Frank’s enthusiasm.

“Yeah, it gives me hope. I mean, you know how Dr. Becknard suggested psychiatry might fit my interests but then when I hated that psychiatry lecture, I was worried about whether going to med school would be a waste of time. But this guy isn’t a psychiatrist and he watches people every day he’s in clinic. I think I could love this as a career.”

They talked about waffles and psychiatry and various safe topics until eventually Frank got up the courage to ask about yesterday.

“Oh,” Christine answered, “I was just tired. Everybody has a bad day every month or so, right? Plus I guess it was that stupid movie I watched yesterday morning.”

“What movie?”

“I don’t know the name, it was just some dumb movie where a woman dies in a car accident. Reminded me of my mom. I guess I never told you. She died in a car accident too.”

“What happened? Was there a drunk driver?”

“No,” said Christine, frowning slightly at him. “Her car just ran off the road at a bad spot.”

“Were her brakes bad?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Was it snowing or something?”

“Frank!” Christine snapped. “Why do you want to know all the morbid details? She’s been gone for years.”

“I’m sorry, honey, I guess it’s just my curiosity. Actually I suppose that bodes well for medical school, if I like to figure things out and diagnose them.” He was about to ask if her mom had been sleep-deprived when the fatal accident had happened, but fortunately thought better of it.

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” She huffed silently for a few moments, staring down at the floor. Frank started to try to pick up the conversation, but Christine interrupted him. “Hey, we’ve been talking long enough, honeycakes,” she smiled. “Time to shut up and kiss me.” He was happy to oblige.