enjoyebooks Chapter 138: Clinical Diagnostics (Bonus - )
Chapter 138: Clinical Diagnostics (Bonus - )
The private specialist wing of Aurelia City Hospital smelled aggressively of industrial antiseptic and floor wax. Unlike the chaotic emergency wards on the lower levels, this floor was quiet, its wide hallways lined with polished wood paneling and muted lighting designed to give the city’s wealthiest patients the illusion of a luxury hotel.
Jake walked with a steady, deliberate stride, his leather-soled shoes tapping a quiet rhythm against the linoleum. Behind him, Elias kept a measured distance, his sharp eyes scanning the nurse stations and intersecting corridors with practiced, silent vigilance.
Before heading to the recovery suites where Aliya was being kept, Jake turned down a secondary hallway toward the consulting offices. He stopped in front of a heavy oak door bearing a frosted glass pane: Dr. Julian Mercer, Chief of Neurology.
Dr. Mercer had been the primary physician overseeing Jake’s care during his brief hospitalization a few months prior. He was one of the top diagnostic neurologists in the region, a man paid heavily to identify what standard general practitioners missed.
Jake knocked once and stepped inside.
Dr. Mercer looked up from a thick stack of printed medical charts, his sharp, graying eyebrows rising in immediate recognition. "Mr. Rivers," the doctor said, standing up and extending a hand across his desk. "I wasn’t expecting you back so soon. I reviewed your sister’s morning labs about an hour ago—her recovery profile from the trauma is progressing exceptionally well. Her vitals are completely stable."
"I’m not here for Aliya, Doctor," Jake said, taking a seat in the leather armchair across from the desk. He didn’t waste time with pleasantries. "I need to consult you on something else."
Dr. Mercer slowly sat back down, his professional demeanor instantly shifting into focus. He pulled a clean file toward him. "Alright. Tell me what’s happening."
"The localized headaches behind my left eye," Jake began, his voice flat, completely stripped of emotion. "They’ve changed. They used to be a dull, brief pressure. Over the last few weeks, the intensity has compounded sharply. Fifteen minutes ago, at my office, I experienced a sudden, blinding spike of pain. It wasn’t a gradual onset. It felt like an immediate neurological shock."
Dr. Mercer was writing rapidly now. "Did the pain cause visual distortion?"
"Yes. Extreme light sensitivity, blurring, and then complete blackness," Jake said, leaving out the fact that the blurring had occurred right after his one-hour trading window closed. "I lost consciousness entirely. When I woke up and checked my terminal, exactly four minutes had passed. Last week, a similar episode caused me to pass out for only a few seconds. The duration of the syncopal episodes is increasing."
Dr. Mercer dropped his pen onto the desk, his expression turning deeply grave. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the blotter.
"Mr. Rivers, what you are describing is no longer within the baseline of a standard chronic migraine or stress-induced cephalalgia," Mercer said, his voice measured but heavy with clinical urgency. "A sudden, four-minute loss of consciousness accompanied by severe, localized retro-orbital pain points toward a few critical possibilities. My immediate concern is a neurovascular anomaly—specifically, an expanding intracranial aneurysm or an arteriovenous malformation in the ophthalmic artery pathway behind that left eye."
The doctor tapped his own temple. "When you strain or experience high cognitive load, the blood pressure spikes. If there is a structural weakness in the vessel wall, it expands, compressing the trigeminal nerve and the optic tract, which causes that blinding flash of pain and cuts off localized cerebral perfusion, triggering a syncopal blackout."
Jake remained perfectly still, his face an unreadable mask. A structural weakness under pressure, he thought, mapping the doctor’s explanation against the intense strain of his eye ability. He thinks it’s physical plumbing. He doesn’t know the brain is processing billions of calculations of market volume in real time.
"What’s the alternative diagnosis?" Jake asked.
"Transient ischemic attacks, or a highly atypical cluster headache variant that is triggering a profound vasovagal response," Dr. Mercer explained, opening a desk drawer to pull out a prescription pad. "But given the rapid escalation from a few seconds of blackout to four full minutes, we cannot afford to guess. If this is an aneurysm that is beginning to leak or structurally degrade, the next episode could cause a hemorrhagic stroke."
The doctor wrote rapidly on the pad, the paper tearing with a sharp rip as he handed it to Jake.
"I am writing you a prescription for a high-dose calcium channel blocker—Nimodipine," Mercer said firmly. "It will help stabilize the vascular smooth muscle tone and prevent severe vasospasms behind the eye. I’m also adding a potent acute triptan for the very onset of the aura. But listen to me carefully, Mr. Rivers: these medications are merely temporary dams. They will not fix a structural issue."
Dr. Mercer leaned closer, his eyes locking onto Jake’s with absolute seriousness. "Do not worry yourself into a panic—stress will only elevate your arterial pressure and make the vascular wall more vulnerable. But I want you back in this hospital by Thursday morning at the absolute latest. We are going to run a full high-resolution CT angiogram and a functional MRI of the cranial nerves and the left orbital socket. We need to see exactly what is happening inside that tissue before another episode occurs. Am I clear?"
Jake took the prescription slips, folding them neatly into his blazer pocket. "Clear. Thank you, Doctor."
"Take it easy today, Mr. Rivers. No high-stress meetings," Mercer warned as Jake stood up.
Jake gave a brief nod and walked out of the office. As the heavy door closed behind him, he let out a slow, quiet breath. Thursday, he thought, his hand lightly brushing the fabric over his pocket. I have until Thursday to secure the twenty billion marks for the Apex Plaza before I let them scan my head.
---
Three floors down, Elias stepped forward, opening the door.
On the main bed, Aliya was sitting up against a pile of plush pillows. Her skin was still pale, and a dark, ugly purple bruise marred the left side of her jaw from the steering wheel’s impact, but her eyes were sharp, alight with a familiar, stubborn energy.
"It’s about time," Aliya said the moment Jake walked through the door, her voice slightly raspy but thick with her usual defiant cadence. "I was starting to think you forgot about your favorite sister because you were too busy counting all the money you don’t want to share."
A small, genuine smile broke through Jake’s stoic expression as he walked to the side of the bed. He reached out, gently squeezing her uninjured hand. "What are you talking about, Iliterallygave hundreds of millions to charity a few days ago. How are you feeling?"
"Like I got hit by a silver house," Aliya muttered, though she didn’t winced as she adjusted her posture. "But the doctors say the concussion is mild, and the internal scans are totally clear. They’re releasing me tomorrow morning. I already told the head nurse that if they try to keep me here until noon, I’m going to start auditing their billing department for fun."
Jake chuckled softly, pulling up a chair beside the mattress. "Let them do their jobs, Ali. I already paid the premium clearance. Your paperwork will be on the desk by eight AM."
Aliya’s expression softened slightly, her eyes shifting toward the wall that shared a border with the neighboring room. "I went to see Carroll earlier."
Jake’s posture tightened just a fraction. "How is she?"
"She’s broken, Jake," Aliya whispered, the tough shell she wore around the office cracking for a brief second, her fingers tightening around his hand. "Her leg is in a massive traction cast, her face is swollen, and she’s hooked up to an oxygen line. Her mother wouldn’t even look at me when she left the room. She just pushed right past me in the hall like I was a piece of trash."
"Aliya—"
"I know, I know," Aliya interrupted, swallowing hard as she blinked back the sudden brightness in her eyes, forcing her chin up. "Mr. Vance told me what you did. He said because of you, Carroll is in a private VIP suite with three top orthopedic specialists watching her around the clock. He said she’s going to walk again because we have the money for the micro-surgeries. I know your wealth saved her leg, Jake. But it still feels wrong that I walked away with some bruises while she’s pinned to a mattress."
Jake looked at his little sister, seeing the raw, suffocating guilt eating at her edges. He knew that look; it was the same weight he had carried when the world had turned against them before he unlocked the power in his eye.
"You didn’t drive into that car, Aliya," Jake said, his voice dropping into an absolute, unyielding tone that brooked no self-doubt. "The police report is clear. The silver SUV targeted your path. You didn’t pull that trigger. The person who did is the one who will pay for it. Your only job right now is to get healthy."
Aliya looked at him for a long moment, the absolute certainty in his voice acting like a stabilizing anchor for her frayed nerves. She let out a long, ragged breath, the tension slowly draining from her shoulders.
"Yeah," she murmured, a small, stubborn spark returning to her eyes. "That’s exactly what Carroll said. She told me if I said ’I’m sorry’ one more time, she’d have the nurse kick me out of the ward."
A faint smile touched Aliya’s lips as she leaned back against the pillows, her mind clearly shifting toward the future they had already started drafting in the dark of the hospital room.
"So, we made a deal," Aliya said, her voice gaining a sudden, mischievous firmness that made Jake narrow his eyes slightly. "The absolute second Carroll is discharged and finishes her physical therapy, we are going on a trip. A real trip, Jake. Not a weekend drive to the suburbs. We’re talking first-class flights, five-star luxury villas, the works."
Jake raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"
"Yes," Aliya said, her eyes flashing with that familiar, lethal Rivers light as she pointed a finger at him. "We lost all our shopping bags in the wreck—Carroll’s designer heels are probably crushed in a scrap yard somewhere. So, I told her we are going to replace everything and then some. Anywhere in the world she wants to go, we are booking it. And I explicitly told her that I am going to make my annoying billionaire brother pay for every single cent of it."
Jake let out a low chuckle, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs. The weight of the doctor’s diagnosis, the terrifying four-minute blackout, and the strange glowing lines above Alice and Elias seemed to fade into background noise as he looked at his sister’s fierce expression.
"Anywhere in the world, huh?" Jake mused, his eyes glinting with amusement.
"Anywhere," Aliya insisted, a triumphant grin breaking through her bruises. "First class, premium suites, private tours. I told her I’d handle the shark. So, keep your platinum routing codes ready, Mr. Rivers. You’re funding the recovery tour."
"Get through the discharge papers tomorrow first," Jake replied, his voice warm despite his usual calculated exterior. "Then you can pick your continent. I’ll make sure the account is ready."