Free Against Medical Advice by James Patterson

the glass door that leads to the inner office is still locked. We’re always early for these appointments. I guess that’s because we’re always so hopeful.
    We sit and wait in silence. My father is thumbing through old magazines; my mother is trying to look optimistic, as usual planning to spend her whole day with me. Since my head started shaking all those years ago, she’s given up her own business, writing, and any thought of a career.
    The next time the elevator arrives at our floor, a teenage boy comes out with a condition no one would believe unless they saw it for themselves. My first thought is that he must have dropped something and is trying to pick it up.
    But as he leaves the elevator, he doesn’t stand. Instead, he moves forward like an animal. He places both hands ahead of his body on the ground and keeps them there until his legs catch up. This allows him to take another stride. Amazing as it seems, this must be how he moves all the time and why he’s here. This is his movement disorder, as big an understatement as there has ever been.
    After three steps, he jumps up on the bench and swings his legs around to face forward. He does this so effortlessly it’s clear he must have done it a thousand times.
    Once he’s settled on the bench, he looks straight ahead without checking our reactions. That’s something I totally understand. I’ve learned how
not
to see people staring at me, too.
    Not wanting to embarrass him, I study him out of the corner of my eye. Sitting, he appears to be completely calm and normal. He’s older than I am by five or six years, which would make him about eighteen. He’s good-looking, with intelligent eyes.
    His mother is showing a lot of self-control, too. My heart goes out to both of them. I can’t imagine what it’s like to get up every morning knowing that some power you can’t control will force you to move around like a gorilla. All he probably wants to do is just stand up straight. How cheated he must feel, how he must hurt inside. I wonder if he ever runs into anyone worse off than himself, like I just have. I don’t think I could survive what he has, but I guess I’d find a way.
    I’ve thought about what a place that treats movement disorders would look like. I pictured the laboratory in
Frankenstein.
In reality, the building is like a large city hospital, all cement and windows. The closest parking is a few blocks away, so by the time I hopped, skipped, and jumped to the front door, I was tired out, and the day hadn’t even started yet.
    My mother has told me that the Stringer Clinic is one of the best hospitals in the world for research into unusual body movements, especially Parkinson’s disease. Since I’m beginning to believe that any cure for what I have will eventually have to come from me, I’m mainly here to please my parents.
    Our appointment with the well-known Dr. Holmes has been a great accomplishment for my mother. At first they told Mom that the doctor was too busy to see me, but when Mom described how severe my movements were and started to cry, they agreed to make room in the doctor’s busy day.
    This is a truly depressing thought. Being able to attract the attention of someone this famous only clues me in to how extreme my case must be.

Chapter 28
    DR. HOLMES SEEMS TO BE involved more in research than in the actual treatment of patients. Her biography on the Internet is very impressive.
    In a short time, I’ll wish that I’d never heard of her or her hospital. I’m about to learn the meaning of the phrase
living hell.
    In theory the hospital’s advanced research and treatments for Parkinson’s disease are important for me because that illness also causes involuntary movements. Like Tourette’s, Parkinson’s has something to do with two chemicals the brain produces, dopamine and serotonin. We’ve been told that Dr. Holmes has had great success treating Tourette’s patients, too.
    When we’re finally admitted inside, we’re