60 pages • 2 hours read
Left Neglected
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Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Sarah wakes in the hospital with an intubation tube in her mouth. A nurse asks her to do simple tasks, and Sarah suddenly remembers the car crash. As she begins to panic, the nurse says that they need to put her back to sleep so that she can rest.
Sarah wakes again, and doctors remove her intubation tube. She touches her head, which feels like it is on fire. She now has metal staples covering her head. Sarah falls asleep again.
When she wakes again, Bob is there. He tries to reassure her that she is fine, but Sarah can tell that her situation is serious. She has been kept sedated for eight days following surgery to relieve the pressure on her brain. Bob begins to cry, shocking Sara. She has never seen him cry in the 10 years they have been together.
Sarah asks if the children know about her condition, but Bob told them that she is away for work. Sarah asks if her work knows. Bob says that they sent most of the cards on the wall and that she should not worry about anything. Sarah looks at the wall but does not see any cards.
Sarah feels sore and exhausted, but hungry, so Bob goes to find a nurse.
Chapter 8 Summary
The nurse asks Sarah why she is not eating her soup. Sarah replies that she does not have a spoon. The nurse looks at the tray, then asks Sarah if she would like her brownie. Sarah does not see a brownie.
Out of nowhere, the nurse produces a spoon and a brownie. She hands the spoon to Sarah and asks, “You didn’t see these on your tray?” (73). Sarah is certain that they were not there. The nurse says that she will be back with Dr. Kwon.
Dr. Kwon says that Sarah is doing well considering she had had bleeding and inflammation in her brain that caused damage. Sarah asks if Bob can hear this information. She hears Bob say that he is right there, but she cannot see him. Dr. Kwon asks Bob to move to the other side of the bed and suddenly Sarah sees him.
Dr. Kwon has Sarah track his finger, which disappears after a moment. Bob asks if Sarah is blind, but Dr. Kwon replies that her eyes look fine and the areas of her brain responsible for vision were not damaged.
After more examination, Dr. Kwon announces that Sarah has a neurological condition called Left Neglect, which causes her brain to ignore everything on her left side. As far as Sarah knows, nothing on her left side exists. She is not even aware that anything is missing.
When Sarah tries to feel her left hand or wiggle her left toes, she is completely unable to find them.
Chapter 9 Summary
Sarah moves from ICU to the neurology unit. Dr. Kwon conducts many tests, as Left Neglect is not a well-understood disorder.
Dr. Kwon asks Sarah to draw pictures. She draws half of each one, though she thinks she has drawn a complete picture. Dr. Kwon explains that the brain unconsciously fills in the blanks of what it cannot see.
When Dr. Kwon asks her to look at the left side of her food tray, Sarah has no way of figuring out how to do that.
A physical therapist does an exercise in which she covers Sarah with cotton balls and asks her to pick them off. Bob takes a picture of her and Sarah sees the balls. She also sees that she has two arms and two legs, which is a relief.
Sarah’s mother, Helen, walks into the room and begins to cry. Sarah is surprised to see her, as her mother rarely leaves Cape Cod and has not visited since Lucy was born. She has never met Linus. Her presence irritates Sarah, and Sarah tells her to go stand by the window, to the left.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Sarah wakes to find that her accident was extremely serious. She cannot speak, adding to the nightmarish experience. A nurse asks her to squeeze with her right hand, then squeeze with her other hand. “I don’t understand the question” (66). This is the first indication that something is very wrong with Sarah, which the reader learns is Left Neglect.
Left Neglect, also known as hemispatial neglect, is a real neurological condition that renders people incapable of unilateral perception. In Sarah’s case, she’s unable to ordinarily perceive stimuli on the left side of her body. It isn’t quite a lack of sensation. Sarah can feel when someone taps her left hand, but she has no idea where that sensation is coming from: “Her brain isn’t paying attention to anything on her left. ‘Left’ doesn’t exist to her” (76). She compares it to telling her to look at the back of her head, but it is worse than that, since she knows where the back of her head is.
Dr. Kwon, Sarah’s neurologist, explains that the brain is accustomed to filling in the blanks of what it cannot directly perceive, so Sarah thinks she is seeing everything as a whole. She looks at herself in Bob’s camera phone and thinks that she sees both sides, when in fact she is only seeing her right side.
In her first moments alone with Bob, Sarah realizes, from his relief that she is still alive, how serious her accident was. He tries to reassure her, but his face betrays his fear about her condition. “His expression reminds me of what happens to his face when he’s watching the Red Sox. […] He wants to believe that they can still win, but he knows they’ve probably already lost” (69).
Sarah immediately wishes to “get better” and leave the hospital. When Dr. Kwon takes notes on her condition, Sarah tries to figure out what the “right” answers should be. She worries about how many emails are in her inbox, who is taking care of her responsibilities. Sarah has not yet accepted that her recovery will not be simply be a matter of her own determination and resolve.
Chapter 9 introduces the arrival of Helen, Sarah’s mother. Sarah views her mother as an annoyance rather than a comfort. When Helen feels overwhelmed by the sight of Sarah’s injuries, Sarah wishes she was not there.
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