A White Coat Is My Closet (30 page)

“Not if you’re a healthy addiction. I’m in the same category as regular exercise, a high-fiber diet, and polyunsaturated fats. I’m actually good for you.” I leaned in for another kiss and whispered, “At least, I
want
to be good for you.”

After Sergio pulled away, he opened the door and gave me a gentle push. “You’re on the right track. Unless, of course, I end up getting fired because you make me late for work. Then you get added to the list of potential health hazards.”

I was almost out the door when I felt Sergio grab my shoulder. “Zack, I had a great time too. Call me tomorrow from the hospital. We’ll get together soon.” He pressed a quick kiss against my cheek, then gave me another gentle push. “Now get out of here.”

Recalling the evening so warmed my heart that even reading down the long list of patients who had been admitted over the weekend did little to squelch my incredibly good mood. Diane came and sat down next to me, looking bleary-eyed from the long night working. I smiled up at her. “Hey, sweet thing. Looks like you had the weekend from hell. What did you do? Admit every child in the city? How many patients do we have on this list? Looks like no fewer than fifteen new names.” I reached over and brushed the hair off her forehead. “I’m sorry. Guess I have to assume that the cucumber was left untouched.”

She was too exhausted to counter with her usual clever reply. “Yeah. Must have been a full moon or something. Cory admitted ten kids on Saturday, and I admitted twelve yesterday, six of whom came in after midnight. I couldn’t catch a break last night. I feel like I’ve been chewed up and spit out.”

I smiled warmly at her. “Sorry, honey. You look more like you’ve been chewed up, swallowed, and passed out the other end.” I threw my arm around her and pulled her into a quick hug. “Don’t worry. I’m rested and ready to go. Let’s see what I can do to help you get out of here. We’ll have you back to your gorgeous self in no time.” I ran down the list of new admissions. “Give me a quick rundown on these kids, then tell me which still have loose ends to be tied up. I’ll be your wingman.”

Diane looked at me suspiciously. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were the one who spent the entire weekend in the company of the cucumber. What gives?”

I looked back at her but was unsuccessful in turning my smile into a frown. Even so, I avoided her question. “Is that the thanks I get? Do you want to get out of here or not? The sooner we run this list, the sooner you’re home. Now let’s get cracking.” I gave her a little shove.

She seemed a little reluctant to let me off the hook, but her exhaustion, coupled with knowing how much work was yet to be done, deterred her from interrogating me further. “Okay, let’s get started. Some of these kids are actually pretty sick.”

It took forty minutes just for her to fully describe the condition of each of the patients to me. Some had only been on the floor a couple of hours, so many of them had yet to have their blood drawn, and a couple were still waiting for X-rays to be taken. “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll take a quick run down to Radiology and look at the X-rays that are already completed. Sounds like it’s important to know if the kid in”—I scrolled down the list of patients—“room twenty-four has pneumonia or if his shortness of breath is singularly the result of a severe asthma attack. While I’m gone, you compile a list of all the work that still has to be done.” I smiled. “We’ll divide and conquer.”

I got up to start down the hall but hesitated. “What’s going on with Christopher?”

Diane looked down at the scribbles on her list of patients. “Tomorrow is his big day. They’re going to take him to the operating room to try to remove his primary tumor. Apparently, Surgery is a little nervous. He had another MRI on Saturday. The tumor is situated extremely close to his spinal cord and encroaches on both his left adrenal gland and part of his left kidney. They’re afraid excision is going to be tricky. They’re not sure how much of it they’ll be able to remove, nor do they know if they’ll be able to save the kidney. For his part, Christopher, as usual, seems to be going with the flow. His parents, however, are a mess. Knowing this operation might result in partial paralysis and anticipating that he still has to endure a bone-marrow transplant has them worried sick. I don’t think his mom has eaten anything all weekend.”

The news knocked the wind out of my sails. “Okay, as soon as we get on top of things, I’ll go see him.” I shook my head dejectedly. “Even if I succeed in cheering him up, I don’t know what I’m gonna say to his parents. The whole situation absolutely sucks. No way to sugarcoat that.”

“You can say that again. Makes me question whether I’ll ever want to have children. Having to watch them suffer would be a living nightmare.”

I tried to lighten the mood. “Duh! Having you as a mom would be a nightmare.” Then, recognizing the sincerity of her worry, I walked over and hugged her. “Come on, Diane. You’re gonna be a great mom, and remember, Christopher’s condition is, like, one in a million. You can’t let the prospect of bad things happening prevent you from living your life. I mean, come on. If you really thought about it, the statistical likelihood of being in a car accident could theoretically prevent you from ever driving on the freeway. You can either live your life locked in your house, worrying about all the bad things that could potentially happen, or you can get in your car and head for the beach. Not only is a wonderful day at the beach a better alternative than worrying, there’s never a guarantee. You could choose to stay locked in your house only to have it swallowed by an earthquake.” I gave her a tighter squeeze. “We only have one life. We can’t be afraid to live it. Take reasonable precautions, and don’t be stupid, but forge ahead.” I pulled back and looked at her. “Life is only an invitation to dance—getting out on the dance floor is our decision.” I pushed more hair away from her face. “So come on. Let’s get you out of here. Any real dancing occurs outside of the hospital, and I want you to save a dance for me.”

A hint of a smile crept back across her face. “Just my luck. Partnered with Fred Astaire.”

“Yeah? Doesn’t that make you the envy of the hospital? To be able to work with someone who is devilishly good-looking, light on his feet, and wicked smart? Come on. It’s a Hollywood movie in the making. It’s impossible to write stuff this good.”

Diane smiled, and I saw a glimmer of her wit returning. “Being light in your loafers doesn’t make you a dancer. Now get out of here and try not to trip on your way down the stairs.”

I knew she was baiting me, but I just casually waved over my shoulder and discreetly flipped her the bird. I heard her laughing softly behind me.

The whole way down to Radiology, I contemplated Christopher’s condition. I didn’t think they were going to operate on him until next week. They must have felt it necessary to move up the date. Hopefully, their decision wasn’t an indication that the cancer was continuing to spread despite the chemo.

Once in the radiology department, I found it difficult to thoroughly evaluate the X-rays in front of me because I was mentally distracted. It was impossible to concentrate on anything other than Christopher. I knew from the minute he hit the door that he had a guarded prognosis, but I wasn’t prepared for him to already be getting discouraging news. Rather than waiting for the elevator, I took the stairs two at a time back up to the fourth floor. I wanted to get going on my morning’s work so I could spend some time being brought up to speed about what was going on with him.

The morning truly was a grind. A lot of the patients admitted over the weekend really were pretty sick, and for some, the diagnosis wasn’t immediately obvious. Formulating a treatment plan for them required careful assessment of their labs and prolonged discussion with subspecialists whom we had consulted for help with their management. I devoted my whole day to putting out fires. Patients we believed were stable experienced unanticipated setbacks, and a few of the kids we knew were sick failed to demonstrate the improvements we expected. Everything was so hurried that I barely remembered my feet touching the ground. I seemed to run from one crisis to the next. Had I not, in those brief seconds of downtime, been able to draw on memories of having spent much of the weekend with Sergio, I almost certainly would have gone crazy.

Despite my diligent efforts, I wasn’t able to spring Diane free until late in the afternoon. We were both just too harried to even take a break, much less allow her to leave early. By four, however, enough of the fires had been put out that, though I still hadn’t completed all my work, I felt sufficiently caught up to take over her responsibilities.

I found her sitting at the nurses’ station dejectedly going over her list of patients. I snuck up behind her and pulled it out of her hands. “Go home. You’ve saved enough lives for one day.”

She tried to snatch the list back out of my hands. “Come on, Zack, I still have a bunch of things I need to check.”

I kept the list out of her reach. “And none of them are things I can’t do for you. Look. Have you even eaten anything today? You’ve been on your feet now for more than thirty-three hours. Enough. I’m pretty much caught up with all my essential work, and given all the conversations I’ve participated in today, I’m familiar enough with all the patients that you can go without even having to sign out. Just tell me which labs still have to be checked on.” I shoved her list into my back pocket and began to gently massage her shoulders. “Besides, you’ll be back here in less than fifteen hours. I think I can hold down the fort until then. Don’t tell me you’ve begun to doubt Fred Astaire’s ability to multitask. I dance, I sing, and I do differential calculus in my head. Don’t think for a minute that I’m not capable of singlehandedly taking care of twenty sick children.” I smiled and laughed softly. “Well, you can doubt it, but that shouldn’t prevent you from going home. Besides, by tomorrow morning you’ll be back to bail me out, and you’re a way better dancer than Ginger Rogers. No way, this late in the game, is our Oscar in jeopardy. We’ve got it in the bag.”

My ministrations on her shoulders began to relax her, and for a second I thought Diane had fallen asleep. When she spoke, it came out in a voice ridden with fatigue. “Okay, you win. I’m out of here. I’m fried. At this stage, trying to think is little more than an exercise in futility anyway. You just have to do me one more favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Help me out of this chair. Now that I’ve come to a complete standstill, I’m not sure I can get up.”

I pulled her to her feet and gently pushed her down the corridor. “Go home, get something to eat, take a hot bath, and go right to bed.” As I watched her walk, I realized she was a little unsteady on her feet. “On second thought, better make that a quick shower. I don’t want you drowning in the tub.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll only stay under long enough to ensure that I remain unconscious for a day or two. I could use a few days off.”

“At the risk of sounding selfish, I’ll kill you if you drown. No way I’m gonna try to hold this place together flying solo. Astaire’s best performances were dancing as a duo. Don’t even think of abandoning me.”

Diane waved over her shoulder without turning around. “If I’m not here by six thirty tomorrow morning, call 911. I’ll bring you a cappuccino.”

Her comment stopped me in my tracks and prompted a huge smile to cross my face. “Better be sure it’s a good one. When it comes to cappuccino, I’ve recently been kind of spoiled.”

She turned briefly, gave me a confused glance, then shrugged and continued walking without saying anything. She was clearly too tired to try to read anything into my parting comment.

As soon as she had disappeared down the corridor, I returned to the nurses’ station and pulled the list of patients out of my pocket. In the margin, I made a list of the tasks still to be completed. As none of them were critical, I decided to try to locate Christopher’s oncologist before I went to visit him. In the event his parents asked me any questions, I wanted to be sure I clearly understood his current clinical status as well the rationale for pushing up the day of his surgery.

Dr. Herbert was in her office with the door open, but I still knocked gently before entering. “Hey, Dr. H., you have a second?”

She looked up from her computer screen and motioned me in. “Sure, Zack, just trying to complete the paperwork for a grant application. I could use a break. Have a seat.” She pointed to a pair of the chairs on the other side of her desk but quickly stood when she realized they were piled with stacks of journals. “Damn, hold on one second.” She started toward the piles, then, with a frustrated expression, just waved her hand in defeat. “Tell you what; just push those onto the floor. With this grant proposal due next week, all my good intentions of organizing them have flown right out the window. As a matter of fact, if I were more of a realist, I’d tell you to just drop that stack in the garbage can. Those are the more obscure journals; I probably won’t have a chance to read them anyway.”

I picked the whole pile up, held it briefly over the garbage can, then smiled, shook my head, and stacked them neatly on the corner of her credenza. “I’d love to help you out here. Really, I would. But if I were the one to throw them away, then I would be responsible. I couldn’t live with myself if my impulsiveness resulted in you failing to see some innovative new therapy that could change the course of cancer treatment as we know it.” I laughed and sat down on the seat of the chair I had just cleared.

“Curses. Now I’ll feel even more guilty if I don’t read them.” She started chuckling softly. “All right for you, Zack. You had your chance to do the right thing. Just don’t blame me if for some unknown reason you’re dropped from the program. I hear McDonald’s is hiring. I’ll put in a good word for you. They’re always looking for people to staff their drive-up window.”

She returned to her chair, sat down, and folded her hands on the desk in front of her. “After the day I’ve had, it feels good to laugh. Now, what can I do for you?”

“I came down to ask about Christopher. What’s going on with him? I didn’t think he was going to surgery until next week. Why was his operation moved up? I guess I’m just feeling a little out of the loop and was hoping you could bring me up to speed.”