| General Fiction posted October 1, 2024 | Chapters: |
...42 43 -44- 45... 
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Enter Nadia
A chapter in the book DUEL with the DEVIL
DUEL with the DEVIL - Chapter 44
by Jim Wile
| Background A brilliant young chemist creates a new painkilling drug with unknown benefits and pitfalls. |
Recap of Chapter 43: Julia and Brian talk about what happened while she was gone for two months on tour. Brian explains how he had accidentally taken a double dose of his successful drug, Dipraxa, and how this turned it into a super-narcotic, producing such euphoria that he could do nothing else while under its influence. He asks her to destroy the few remaining pills for him. He is very down on himself and wonders why Julia stays with him, but she tries to buck him up by reminding him that this was the first incident of drug abuse in 13 years and was not something he had planned.
Nevertheless, he sinks into a deep depression over the failure of his drug and fears losing Julia, the person he loves most in the world. She makes an appointment for him with his doctor.
Chapter 44
My doctor puts me on venlafaxine, a potent antidepressant drug that is also an anti-anxiety drug. It’s known as an SNRI, which stands for Serotonin and Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor, because it works by increasing the levels of serotonin and norepinephrine in the brain, both of which help to preserve mental balance. It should cure both conditions at the same time, but it takes about two weeks to feel the full effect. That’s a long time to wait when you feel this way, and the important thing is to try to keep busy and keep your mind off your troubles.
This is where Julia really shines, because she won’t let me just sit around. She sees that I stay constantly occupied: with playing chess (though not very well), with listening to her practice, with watching Netflix movies together like the chess story The Queen’s Gambit (now there’s another character with a major addiction problem!) She has me read to her from Tolkien. She is always by my side and encourages me to do as many things of a constructive nature as I can, like help prepare meals and perform a few cleaning chores. She always presents a pleasant front.
She somehow knows not to argue with my demon and tell me things like, “No, don’t listen to him. You’re super-talented and smart and strong, and you can beat him, Babe.” She doesn’t say these things because she knows I don’t believe them and would just argue. Instead, she just bides her time and helps keep me busy while the venlafaxine takes effect.
She also doesn’t come down hard on me, like Fran might, and say, “Brian, grow a pair and fight this thing. You can do it if you get off your ass and just do it.” She knows this wouldn’t be effective and would only make me feel worse because I already have these thoughts and don’t need her to voice them too. I don’t know how she knows what to do; she just does.
I ask her, “Why do you stick with me, Jules, and how are you able to put up with it? Your life would be so much easier and happier without everything I’m putting you through now.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Babe. My life would be so much more difficult, lonely, and miserable without you in it. I love you, Brian. You’re sick right now, and you don’t desert someone when they’re sick. I will do anything to get back to what we had before this started. But I’m not worried. This will end up being just a blip in our years together. You’ll see.”
I don’t know if she really means this or if she’s just trying to buck me up and is secretly very worried, but I’m grateful nonetheless. She is a rock against which the violent seas of my moods may pound, but she seems so firmly anchored in place that I can’t help but take solace in her confident words.
In about a week, I notice a change in my moods. I’m not as anxious. When I begin to have an overwhelming thought, it almost feels like a shield goes up in my chest to block it by reducing the rush of adrenaline through my core.
One thing I haven’t been doing is trying to think about the problem with Dipraxa. I know that I’m not up to that yet. If there is a solution to the current problem, I understand that it will require clear thinking and a great power of analysis to identify it, and I recognize that I'm simply not up to that right now. Maybe, hopefully, I’ll be able to begin thinking about it soon, but it would only depress me further if I tried now.
In another week, I am substantially better mentally. Physically too. My appetite is back, as is my libido, and Julia and I make love for the first time in months. We take it slow at first, getting accustomed to each other once more, but it doesn’t take long to reestablish our old rhythms, and it becomes wonderful again. Sex has always been essential and special for us, and I realize now how much I’ve missed it.
I’m also able to get a decent night’s sleep now. The pain is still pretty bad, but Julia surprises me this morning over breakfast. She reveals something to me that was totally unexpected.
“Brian, how long would it take you to reacquire the materials and make a new batch of Dipraxa?”
“Just over a week. Why?”
“And without the pain you’re now experiencing, do you think you’d have a better chance of working on the problem with Dipraxa sooner?”
“As long as I keep to the 200 mg dose, then absolutely.”
“Here’s the thing. I never flushed the remainder of the Dipraxa down the toilet when you asked me to. I’ve saved it for a time when I thought you’d be able to handle it again. The right dose, that is. It looks to me like you have about a week’s worth of it left if you take two capsules a day like you used to. Would it be tempting fate if I were to dole out two capsules a day to you?”
“You’re amazing; you know that? I’ve just begun thinking about the problem, but it’s going to take a lot more thought, analysis, and testing in the lab to figure it out. I’m going to need to be sharp for it. Mentally, I feel pretty normal again, but it sure would be nice not to have the pain. I think it would definitely improve things and maybe speed it up if I didn’t have that pain niggling at me in the background.”
“Okay then. Would you like two now?”
“Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?”
Julia does one other thing to surprise me. I put in a full day up in the lab today, beginning to think about the problem, and when I go back downstairs, she’s in the kitchen feeding a kitten.
“What do we have here?” I say.
“This is Nadia. A friend of mine’s cat had kittens, and she asked me if I’d like one.”
“The cat asked you if you’d like one of her kittens?”
Hardly a beat goes by when Julia comes back with, “Yes. She said her nipples were killing her from seven weeks of nursing, and it was time to offload them.”
“Got it.”
We laugh together. She says, “You know I’ve always wanted a cat, and I know you like cats, so I just said, ‘Sure, I’ll take one.’ Perhaps I should have discussed it with you first, but I thought it might make a fun surprise for you. So, what do you think? Shall we keep her?”
I look at the little kitten who has stopped eating and is licking her mouth as she looks at me. “Nadia, huh? Why you’re a cute little thing. Look at those interesting markings, Jules. What do you call this kind of cat?”
“She’s just a domestic shorthair. I think they call that pattern of mottled orange and black ‘tortoise shell’ and the cat a tortie.”
“That seems to fit. She’s adorable.” I bend down and pick her up. She is just a little thing and weighs almost nothing. “So, only seven weeks old. She sure is cute.”
“She is cute. Look at those huge ears on that little face.”
“Yeah, they grow into their ears eventually. She’s a good-natured little girl. She reminds me of Chloe when we first got her when I was a kid. Absolutely, we’re keeping her. I like the name too. Nadia. Was she named after someone?”
“Well, my friend is a conductor, and there was this famous woman conductor and teacher named Nadia Boulanger. She was named after her.”
“Cool. Welcome to our little family, Nadia. This is your house now, and we’ll be living here with you if you don’t mind.”
Julia has been full of surprises lately.
I won’t try to describe the extensive testing I did on Dipraxa to figure out why it was creating those feelings of euphoria at the higher dose. Unless you want me to. No? Didn’t think so. However, I will try to explain in simple terms what exactly I discovered is creating those undesired feelings of euphoria.
If you remember, Dipraxa works by blocking or blunting the sodium channels that carry pain signals to the brain, which significantly reduces the number that can reach the brain and cause pain. The right amount of Dipraxa delivered directly to the ailing areas by nanoparticles effectively does this. But when more than the right amount enters the bloodstream, the excess makes its way to the brain’s pituitary gland. There, it triggers it to release super-endorphins—those pleasure-causing substances that work just like opioids do. They bind to the opioid receptors in another part of the brain and create those euphoric feelings.
It seems like my job then is either to stop the excess Dipraxa from reaching the pituitary or, assuming I can’t do that, to find a way to stop the release of these super-endorphins by the pituitary. Both of these seem like daunting tasks. After all, that’s the main job of the pituitary—to receive signals that trigger it to create and release hormones that regulate and promote normal bodily functions. It seems beyond my current capabilities to instruct it to deviate from its natural behavior. Perhaps someday that will be possible, but I for sure have no idea how to go about it now.
I must keep in mind, though, that there are some individuals who don’t experience the high that opioids cause, but only get the analgesic effect of them. Exactly why that is, I don’t know, but perhaps it will be significant in finding the solution to the problem.
Phew! Enough heavy thinking for now. My reasoning brain is almost back, but it’s still not functioning at 100% yet, and it’s currently in a whirl. I think I’ll go downstairs to talk with Julia. Sometimes discussing things with her sparks ideas for me.
As I enter the kitchen with the intention of pouring myself a cup of tea, Julia comes rushing in from the porch.
“Hey, Babe, I was just coming in to get the stepladder, but since you’re here now, will you come out on the porch with me? Nadia got herself stuck at the top of the screen and can’t get down. You’re tall enough to reach her.”
“She’s stuck at the top of the screen? How did she do that?”
“It’s those sharp little claws of hers. She’s able to climb right up the screen. Only problem is that she got to the top and had nowhere else to go. Now she can’t seem to go back down backwards or turn around and go down forwards. She’s just stuck at the top, mewing loudly for help, the silly thing!”
I follow Julia out to the screened porch, and sure enough, there’s little Nadia, stuck at the top.
“Look at you up there, Nads! Didn’t really think that one out, did you?” I said to the kitten. “Alright, let me help you.”
I reach up and carefully detach her curved, needle-like claws from the screen. I turn her around and look her right in the face. “Have you learned your lesson, young lady? Don’t be climbing up the screens! We may not always be around to rescue you, you goofball.”
I pet her for a while, give her a little kiss, and put her down. What does the knucklehead do but immediately start to climb the screen again?
Julia says, “We’ve got to trim her claws—make it so they won’t be able to grip the screen to climb it.”
I stand stock-still for a few seconds while I ponder what she just said. As I’m staring straight ahead, deep in thought, Nadia quickly scales the screen to the top again.
Julia notices me staring and says, “Babe, what is it? You look like you’re in a trance.”
I’m lost in thought for a few more seconds until I turn to her with the biggest smile on my face. “Jules, that’s it! Oh, I’m married to the cleverest wife in the world.”
I turn and grab Nadia from the top of the screen again. Holding her in one hand, while I grab Julia around the waist with the other, I begin dancing around with them. “You and the squirt here have just solved the problem caused by Dipraxa. I know what to do now.”
“What?”
“I said the problem is solved, and I know what to do now.”
“I heard you,” she says impatiently. “I mean what is it?”
“What is what?”
She rolls her eyes. “Baaabe! Who’s the goofball now? Just tell me what the solution is and what you’re going to do!”
“I’m going to create a Dipraxa variant that you can take as much of as you want to, but it won’t make a bit of difference. You won’t get high no matter how much you take. The new drug, is going to change the shape of the endorphins produced by the pituitary, which will prevent them from binding to the opioid receptors. That binding is what creates those feelings of euphoria!
“You see, I’m guessing my electron microscope will show that these particular endorphins are spiky, but if those spikes are removed in much the way we’ll be clipping Nadia’s claws, the smooth endorphins won’t be able to attach to the Velcro-like opioid receptors, in the same way that Nadia won’t be able to climb the screen anymore. Thus, no euphoria triggered! All the excess in the world won’t be able to make you high because it won’t trigger the euphoria response.”
“Well, that sounds great, but how will your new drug change the shape of the endorphins?”
“Gene manipulation, of course! I’m going to buy my pituitary a new pair of genes.”
“What kind of new genes?”
“Oh, maybe the skinny kind you like so much. I think I’ll give Paul Rieke a call and bat this whole idea around with him for a while.”
(3 more chapters to go)
 Recognized |
Brian Kendrick: The narrator of the story. At the beginning of the story, he is 12 years old and in 6th grade in Kernersville, North Carolina. The story traces his life into his 30s.
Julia Kendrick: Brian's wife whom he met at rehab when they were 16. She becomes a premier violinist.
Francine (Fran) Kendrick: Brian's older sister. She is 18 at the beginning of the story and goes to junior college, where she studies law enforcement.
Rafael Ortiz (Raffi): Youth therapy group leader at the rehab facility.
Robert Entwistle: Julia's father.
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother.
Mike Pekarsky: Fran's boyfriend who she met on her Caribbean cruise.
Daniel Molebatsi: Brian's undergrad college roommate. He is from Botswana and is a business major.
Dr. Paul Rieke: Brian's organic chemistry professor.
Kimiko Yamada (Kimi): Brian's organic chemistry lab partner. She is from Japan and also resides in his and Daniel's dorm.
Willy Stubblefield: The leader of the Clark Creek Drifters bluegrass band that Julia joins.
Shannon Stubblefield: Willy's wife and the drummer of the Clark Creek Drifters.
Nadia: Brian and Julia's new kitten.
Chloe: Brian's childhood pet cat.
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