OOOO

Part 3

A little over three hours later, Mac unlocked the door to her apartment. It had taken some doing; she had not stopped at all since she had left home that afternoon, but now it seemed as if all was back on track for the trial next week. She was greeted by an empty living room, but was not overly concerned at first. The television was still on and it seemed as if Carol-Anne had just left to take a bathroom break. The computer was also turned on, so Mac assumed that Carol-Anne had had plenty to do to fill in her time on her own.

Kicking off her shoes, Mac caught sight of the flashing light of her answering machine, indicating that there were messages waiting for her. She pressed the play button and listened to the first one, still left from that afternoon when the General had called to tell her about Petty Officer Davis, in the brig in Norfolk. The second was from herself, which Carol-Anne had quickly picked up, once she knew it was her big sister calling. The third however, quickly sent a shiver down Mac's spine.

"Colonel MacKenzie…This is Doctor Meadows with Bright Horizons clinic. I've got some news on Mrs. Bailey. The medication and psychotherapy treatments don't seem to be working to adequately treat her depression. But we've still got an avenue that we'd like to explore and we're confident that it could prove most helpful to Mrs. Bailey. Starting from Wednesday of next week, we're going to begin putting together plans to administer a treatment to her called ECT…That is 'Electroconvulsive Therapy'…"

'Oh my God!" Mac thought to herself, 'Is that what I think it is? Electric shock therapy? Do they still use that sort of thing?'

Mac did not have long to dwell on the thought, as her head immediately snapped round to the computer monitor, which displayed the main page for the Google search engine.

Sure enough, a search had been keyed into it, 'What is ECT?'

From the long list of hits that followed the question, Mac had a good idea that Carol-Anne now definitely knew the answer to that question. The rest of the doctor's message was ignored as Mac quickly made her way into the hallway, first peering into the bathroom, then into the guest bedroom. Both appeared to be empty, so she made her way into her room, which she also found empty. Now Mac really was beginning to panic, but she made herself take a deep breath and think about what she was going to do next. She had told Carol-Anne that under no circumstances was she to leave the apartment, but Mac knew that after what she had heard that day, the child was unlikely to be thinking straight. Who should she call first? Social services? Paula? Mrs. Bailey's doctors? Would Carol-Anne try and go there?

Mac was just passing the open door to the guest bedroom when she noticed something she had missed before. One of Carol-Anne's socked-feet was showing from behind the bed just a little bit. Mac gave a sigh of relief and went to where the child was lying on the floor, sobbing almost silently, but her little body shaking fiercely. Mac stooped down and carefully scooped her up, taking a seat on the guest bed and seating the shuddering child on her knee. She couldn't think of exactly what she could possibly say to make this okay for the child, but she would do her best to show Carol-Anne that she was not alone in all this.

"Are you okay?" Mac asked, a little while later.

The child was no longer sobbing and shaking, but still took a shuddering breath every now and then.

Carol-Anne simply shook her head.

"You heard what the doctor said about the new treatment your Mom might undergo?" Mac knew well enough the answer to that question, but she knew that it was something that the child was going to have to talk about, sooner or later.

"Yes," Carol-Anne answered, shakily.

"Do you know what ECT is?" Mac asked.

"I know that they're going to shoot electricity through her brain," Carol-Anne broke out, angrily.

"And that scares you?" Mac asked her.

"Yes!" Carol-Anne's temper flared up even more, "That's how they kill people on death row...I learned about it in school…"

"No!" Mac quickly interrupted her, "That is not what happens with ECT…"

"How is it not the same thing?" Carol-Anne asked her, angrily, "They're talking about firing electricity through my Mom's brain! What if it goes wrong and they hurt her…or she…she…"

"ECT is a proven treatment in cases of depression where medication and other kinds of therapy aren't effective on their own," Mac told her, "And I'm sure that it's very carefully monitored. They won't use anywhere near as much voltage as to hurt her and the doctors monitor the patient the whole time…How about we go and take a look on the internet, so that we can find out more about what's involved and if we're still not sure about if this is going to be the right thing for helping your Mom, then we can call her doctors and express our concerns?"

Carol-Anne just looked at her unsurely, then relented and nodded her assent. Sliding down from Mac's knee, she stood on shaky legs as Mac stood and wound her arms around the child from behind, while she guided her through to the living room and back to the computer.

Over the next hour, they had both found out much more information from the internet, which gave them a better understanding about what ECT actually involved.

"See," Mac pointed out to Carol-Anne, "It says here that ECT is a proven therapy for people suffering from severe depression or other mental illnesses that have been hard to control using drugs and psychotherapy...You remember that treatment that your Mom was getting, the last time? Behavioral therapy? That was sort of thinking about why she felt the things she did and putting them into perspective so that she could see that they weren't so bad and that she could come up with ways to deal with them…Remember, her therapist was helping her come up with approaches to deal with situations that made her start to feel nervous?"

Carol-Anne nodded her head, adding, "Yeah…she hated it, or at least the therapist she had to speak to…"

Mac gave a chuckle before continuing.

"Well, with ECT, the electricity seems to alter the chemicals produced in the brain that control how happy we feel. With people with depression, like your Mom, these have become unbalanced and are what caused the problem in the first place, causing her to feel bad. 'With regular sessions, as well as medication and/or psychotherapy, chances of recovery is good for these patients and usually proves to take effect quicker than medication'."

"But won't it hurt her?" Carol-Anne asked.

"It says here that people undergoing ECT are given special drugs to make them unconscious, just like for any other operation," Mac assured her, " It's just like falling asleep for a while and when you wake up, you don't remember anything that has happened while you've been under the anesthetic…"

While Mac was explaining this, her eyes were scanning ahead, reading the other information that the website was giving. Her eyes flitted across the words 'risk of death' and she quickly went to scroll back up, so that Carol-Anne wouldn't catch sight of it. However, she wasn't quick enough, as Carol-Anne's eyes went wide.

"WHAT!" she exclaimed, "Did that say that people DIE from having this done!"

"No," Mac quickly moved to explain to her, carefully, using language she could understand, "it said that, sometimes, a very small number of people die, usually from the drugs they were given in order to put them to sleep before the operation…but that is a very small number of people who have allergic reactions to the drugs and it's a risk with any operation. Somebody could only be having their teeth pulled under anesthetic and the same thing could happen…but it's VERY rare. And I'm sure your Mom's had anesthetic before. We'll talk to her doctor about this sort of thing, so that he can look at your Mom's medical history make sure that anything they give your Mom won't unintentionally make her ill. Doctors are very careful these days and they monitor their patients to make sure they're alright, the whole way through the operation."

"I still don't like this," Carol-Anne shook her head, "What if they don't knock her unconscious properly and she feels them hurting her?"

"The doctors have ways to make sure that their patients are asleep properly," Mac reassured her, "While you were out of it in the hospital, the doctors had you hooked up to something called an EEG machine. By looking at the read-out it gave, they could tell the difference between when you were asleep and when you were awake. They could even tell the difference between when you were in the coma and when you came out of it, but were still unconscious."

"Really?" Carol-Anne asked, "And they'd use one of these machines to make sure that my Mom was asleep properly and that she wasn't feeling any pain."

"I'm sure they would," Mac nodded, "I can call Doctor Meadows and we'll set up a meeting with him and your Mom, so that he can explain everything to us all. That way, once we have all the facts, we can decide if this is something we want to continue with, or whether it would be better to look into other treatments."

"Okay," Carol-Anne nodded, secure in the knowledge that she wasn't being forced into making any decision just yet.

OOOO

"What are you up to, tonight?" Harm asked Mac, as they got ready to leave the office on Friday night.

"I've got a meeting at the clinic," Mac told him, "so that Carol-Anne and her Mother and I can get a progress report from her doctor. What about you? Got a hot date?"

Harm choked off a laugh and shook his head. He resisted the urge to tell her that he had been about to ask her if she wanted to go out for dinner. They hadn't done a whole lot together lately, since Carol-Anne had come to live with Mac, but Harm more than understood that, having gone through the adjustment phase with Mattie, when she came to live with him. He was just feeling a little sorry for himself, now that Mattie was back to living with her Dad and he was now on his own again. He mentally told himself to suck it up.

"I wish," he told Mac, "just a date with my guitar, I guess. Maybe I'll order dinner in. The Chinese restaurant around the corner is good and they don't charge me for delivery, since I'm a regular and I live so close by."

Ooo!" Mac teased him, "The last of the big spenders!"

Harm just gave a laugh and changed the topic.

"So how is Mrs. Bailey doing? Is that new medication working out?"

Mac shook her head ruefully.

"No, and it's turning into a real problem. Remember that day last week when I got called out to the Brig at Norfolk and I had to assist Petty Officer Davis? Remember how I had to leave Carol-Anne on her own for a few hours? Well, Mrs. Bailey's doctor chose that time to call and leave a message on my answer machine about how the medication and psychotherapy aren't working for her and how they were beginning to explore the option of electroconvulsive therapy."

Harm nearly dropped his briefcase and turned to Mac with shock written on his face.

"My God!" he frowned, "And she heard what he said?"

Mac nodded.

"Did she understand just what 'electroconvulsive therapy' was?"

"She did after doing a Google search," Mac told him, darkly, "and it scared the hell out of her. She was a mess when I finally got home. I really need to start child-proofing my house and put security measures on my internet service."

"That poor kid!" Harm shook his head, "I don't know what I would have done if I'd been in her place when I was her age…"

"You went through plenty when you were approaching your teens," Mac pointed out, "And you still turned out fine."

"I went through plenty that I had a hard time dealing with," Harm pointed out, "but I had the support of my Mother, Frank and other family members. Her Mother is the only family Carol-Anne has to turn to and these decisions involve her Mother directly. She can't even see her Mom."

They were by now in the elevator, alone, so Harm took a chance and reached out to Mac, taking her hand in his. This caught her a little off-guard, but she didn't attempt to pull her hand away.

"This is a really great thing you're doing, Mac," Harm told her, softly, "You're making all the difference in this child's life, at a time when she needs somebody the most…"

Mac could only smile in appreciation at his kind words and sentiments.

"I'm really proud of you, Ninja-girl…"

It had been a while since they'd used their old pet-names for each other, but Mac didn't feel in the least self- conscious as she squeezed Harm's hand back and replied,

"Thank you, Fly-boy…You have no idea how much that means to me."

With a last smile, they left the building and went separate ways to collect their cars.

OOOO

It had been nearly three weeks since their meeting with Mrs. Bailey's doctors and Mac had thought that Carol-Anne had understood and reacted to their explanation very well. Both Mrs. Bailey and her daughter had discussed the matter and had both agreed that electro-convulsive therapy did seem like their best option at that moment, one that would provide quicker and probably more effective results. The doctors had allowed Carol-Anne to see her Mother before and after the first procedure was carried out. That way, the girl was able see that the treatment was not causing her Mother any physical harm. However, after that, Carol-Anne was not allowed to see her mother, not until two weeks after the first set of treatments were completed. Later on, Carol-Anne again would not be able to visit her Mother while the second and third sets of treatment were on-going.

It was during these times that Carol-Anne suffered her worst bouts of anxiety.

Mac first became alarmed when Carol-Anne showed up at the office one afternoon after school.

"Carol-Anne?" she made her way over to where the child had emerged from the elevator, "Sweetie, what are you doing here? Did Mrs. McCafferty drop you off?"

The child just nodded, refusing to speak and Mac was sure she saw the hint of tears in her eyes.

"Are you okay? How was school today?" she tried again, gently.

"Horrible," Carol-Anne got out, bitterly, then asked, sarcastically, "And how was your day?"

OOOO