Doctor Shui looked anxiously at the middle-aged woman as she looked at his tablet through her designer prescription gla.s.ses. He felt a mixture of excitement and fear. The excitement came from the possibility of cracking the mystery which had been bothering him for a while. The fear could be traced to a certain cold handsome face."I thought at first that the patient was at risk of schizophrenia. But now, I am not too sure." He spoke shifting on the couch.
The woman did not respond. Instead, she gave him a single librarian"s glance, causing him to be silent. She scrolled and skimmed through the information. She frowned as she took in the general data, scans and charts. Like Doctor Shui, she felt fascinated.
"Can you tell me more about the patient?" She asked.
"Even if I want to tell you more, I can"t. I hardly know anything myself, except what I have discovered through these tests. And if I knew, I wouldn"t put my life at risk by talking about the patient." He responded with an apologetic look.
Doctor Huo looked at the young man for a while before nodding. She understood professional restrictions, especially when working for powerful people like the Zhong family. However, she could not suppress her curiosity. She had not seen such an interesting case.
"So what can you tell me?" Doctor Shui was about to start hopping up and down on his seat.
Doctor Huo sighed and placed the tablet on the table.
"You know mental disorders cannot be diagnosed simply by looking at cold data. Interaction with the patient is crucial." She said.
"But you are the best psychiatrist in the country. You must have some ideas." Doctor Shui looked at her pitifully.
"You are too old to be acting spoiled." She paused.
"The patient is not at risk of schizophrenia from what I can see. Though her brain is functioning at an abnormal rate, it is unlikely that she will develop the disorder. Basically, her mind is not typical, but the brain waves are stable. There is a possibility that she experiences some unusual issues due to the anomalies, but the likelihood of escalation is low." She continued.
Doctor Shui smiled in relief and stood up.
"She will be so glad to hear about this. Thank you so much, Aunt Huo."
"Sit down. You are always so impatient. I have not finished talking." She rebuked him.
Doctor Shui looked embarra.s.sed and sat down. He had been overjoyed and forgotten himself. Even though he accepted that he was a moneygrubbing person, he was Zhong Feng"s friend. He did not want Hu Lei to suffer, and he wanted his friend to be happy.
That is why he had gone behind their backs and consulted Doctor Huo. He had gotten to know this lady when he was a medical student. He had not been very reliable, but she seemed to have a soft spot for him. If anyone could help Hu Lei, it was her.
He still remembered how helpless he felt after speaking to Hu Lei. It was good that he was wrong.
"Is there something else?" He asked.
"There is another troubling discovery I made when looking at the EEG charts and MRI scans. Have you noticed the difference between the initial and the most recent data?" She asked.
He had.
"Yeah, but the difference did not seem so significant considering the circ.u.mstances." He responded.
Actually, he had not intended to do another round of tests on the day Hu Lei fainted, but Zhong Feng had insisted.
"You are smart, but you are not meticulous. Even though you are not an expert in the field, you should be more attentive." The woman rebuked.
Doctor Shui looked repentant. He had thought that the test results were not important because he had tested Hu Lei on the previous day, before she came in again.
"The difference is subtle, but quite significant. In the second tests, the brain wave patterns have a new rhythm, almost as if they came from another person." She said in a soft voice.
Doctor Shui felt his heart beat fast and irregularly.
"What do you mean?" He asked.
"The patient might not be at risk of schizophrenia, but there are signs of ident.i.ty dissociation." She explained.
"You mean multiple personality disorder?"
"The correct term is dissociative ident.i.ty disorder, but it is not exactly the case for this patient. I can"t know more without seeing her. I think it is more of a gradual fracturing of ident.i.ty. Think of it as an ident.i.ty crisis where one person feels that they have more than one ident.i.ty but can only choose one. However, they cannot suppress either side of themselves."
"As a result, a fight develops between the personalities in both the conscious and subconscious. Over time, the personalities might reach to a point where they are completely independent of one another. Currently, the patient"s personas have not separated, so their brain patterns are different but similar."
"In these cases, the progress will depend on the patient and the circ.u.mstances. Either the two ident.i.ties will integrate or split, causing dissociative disorder. If there is no psychological trigger, there might be no fracturing of the ident.i.ties, and complete integration might occur."
Doctor Shui leaned back in his chair, unable to move. The burden in his heart became heavier. It seemed that things had gotten a little more complicated.
"I am not giving this as an official diagnosis. It is merely my speculation based on the limited information provided." She paused. "What kind of trauma would cause so much damage to a single person? It is almost unimaginable that this patient is able to wake up every morning."
Based on her judgement and experience, she could see that there had to be layers upon layers of mental and psychological trauma. She felt that this type of person had to be a supernatural existence.
Doctor Shui thought about the small Hu Lei canoodling with Zhong Feng and teasing him. He had thought that the malnourishment was a big deal. Now he discovered that it was only the tip of the iceberg. What kind of life had she lived?
"She said that she had a couple of difficult years." He spoke to himself.
"I would say she has had a difficult life. Trauma with this level of damage to the brain and mind must have started from childhood." Doctor Huo sighed.
Doctor Shui"s phone buzzed. He picked the call, but he did not speak.
"Aunt Huo, I have to go. Thank you for your help." He was no longer enthusiastic.
"Do not be discouraged. It is likely that I am wrong."
Doctor Shui nodded, but he knew that she was not wrong. If he was a genius, Doctor Huo was a super genius.