It’s Ruth and Pogie having the discussion about coping. Pogie asks her the question while they are driving back to Ruth’s house the night her parents are packing up her insects.
Perry does go to see a doctor, but his hallucinations are dismissed as a sign of stress. Perry eventually learns to cope on his own and seems to become ‘normal’, pretty much, until the end. Ruth, on the other hand, goes through quite a battery of tests and is diagnosed with an illness, for which she is prescribed medications. She has moments of normalcy, but can’t maintain them.

At any rate, thanks for the comments/summary on the book….very helpful to my understanding of the story.