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“You’re not here for me to judge whether something sounds crazy. Just tell me what you’ve noticed.”

For a second, Lakelyn said nothing, then, “Sometimes I smell a cologne that I haven’t smelled in years. And one time I felt something touch my back. I’ve heard things that didn’t make sense. I've seen stuff move when I know nobody touched it. There have been a few other things around the house that...” She paused, visibly trying to find the least ridiculous way to finish. “That I don’t have an explanation for.”

The doctor nodded calmly. “Have you heard voices?”

Lakelyn gave a small, embarrassed laugh. “No. That’s probably the only thing I haven’t experienced.”

The doctor leaned a little closer to the camera. “Lakelyn, I’m going to ask you a few questions that might feel repetitive, but I need you to answer them honestly.”

She ran through everything from new or unusually severe headaches, changes in vision, dizziness, and confusion to memory gaps, trouble concentrating during normal daily tasks, and any history of seizures.

Lakelyn answered no to every one of them.

“Have you been sleeping?”

Lakelyn made a face. “Not enough.”

The doctor smiled faintly. “How much is not enough?”

“Depends on the night… five hours, sometimes six, sometimes less.”

There it is.

The doctor didn’t look nearly as satisfied with that answer as I was.

“What about stress?”

Lakelyn actually laughed.

“Do you want the short list or the full PowerPoint?”

The doctor chuckled. “Let’s start with the short list.”

“Well… I recently moved back to my hometown. I'm staying in a house that has... history for me. My grandmother has health problems. I'm raising a five-year-old. I’ve had some personal things happen recently that brought up old memories. And I was out of work for a little while after the move.”

She left me out… at least directly. But I was sitting right in the middle of every damn thing she had just said.

The doctor nodded. “That’s a significant amount of change. And stress combined with poor sleep can cause some unusual experiences. That doesn't necessarily mean what you're experiencing isn't real to you, and it doesn’t automatically mean there's a serious neurological or psychiatric issue either. But because you’ve had sensory experiences involving touch, smell, sound, and movement, I don’t want to dismiss it as stress without doing our due diligence.”

Lakelyn nodded. “That’s what I want.”

My baby wanted an answer she could put on paper… something with a diagnosis code, something she could treat… something that made sense. Unfortunately, the answer was standing across the room dead as hell.

The doctor continued. “I’m going to order some basic blood work. I'd also like you to come into the office for a neurological exam. Nothing you've told me today is setting off an immediate alarm, especially since you're not having headaches, confusion, memory loss, weakness, vision changes, or any other neurological symptoms. But I want to rule out anything physical before we decide stress or lack of sleep is responsible.”

“Okay.”

“If everything comes back normal and these experiences continue, we'll decide where to go next.”

Lakelyn nodded again.

Then, because she was Lakelyn, she added, “So you don’t think I'm losing my mind?”

“I honestly don’t.”

Lakelyn's shoulders relaxed so slightly most people probably wouldn't have noticed.

I did… and that tiny movement made me feel like absolute shit.