The Family Doctor
He did know, of course, but he’d forgotten. His irritation had reached the borderline of outright fury by the time Alf Jensen burst through the door with the results of the X rays.
“It’s about time,” Tony growled. “Fractured, right?” He’d resigned himself to the fact that he’d be hobbling around on a cast for the foreseeable future. His ankle was swollen to more than twice its normal size, and it was so painful he could barely stand the weight of the ice pack a nurse had slapped on it.
Alf closed the door and perched on the side of the bed.
Tony frowned at him, wondering why the hell Alf had such a grim look on his face. “Well? What’s the verdict? If it’s fractured, I know I’ll have to wait for the swelling to go down before we can cast the bloody thing. Let me have a look at the X ray.” He grabbed for it, but Alf quickly moved it out of his reach.
“The ankle looks fine, Tony, no fracture.”
“Well, that’s good news.” It didn’t make it any less painful, but at least a sprain would heal faster. “So let’s just bind it up with a tensor bandage, and I can hobble around on crutches.”
“I’m afraid the X ray picked up something we hadn’t expected.” Alf got up and slipped the negative into the viewing frame. “See this shadow right here?”
Tony frowned and studied the film. It showed an ankle and part of a leg. Alf was pointing to a spot on the fibula, just above the ankle joint.
“There’s a lesion right here, Tony. I had Crompton take a look at it—that’s what took so long. He was up in Surgery and I had to wait until he could break for a minute. He agrees with me that it looks like a possible sarcoma.”
Stunned, Tony gaped at the other doctor. “You’ve got to be joking. Sarcoma? That’s not possible.”
“I wouldn’t joke about a thing like this, Tony, you know that.”
It was a struggle for Tony to keep the utter horror he felt from showing on his face. The ramifications sent a bolt of fear straight into his gut. Sarcoma was a fast-acting cancer. He could lose his leg.
No, he corrected as his stomach knotted and bile wormed its way up into his throat. No could about it. If this were sarcoma, he would lose his leg. He swallowed hard and did his best to control his expression.
“I’ve ordered a CAT scan. They’ll come and take you over there in a minute.” Alf looked uncomfortable and didn’t meet Tony’s gaze. “We could well be wrong. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed. And we have to be grateful for the X ray. If it is sarcoma, the sooner we treat it the better—although I don’t need to tell you that, Tony. You know as well as I do.”
He did, but it wasn’t any comfort. After mouthing another half dozen platitudes, Alf finally left, and for the first time all morning, Tony was relieved to be alone in the tiny room.
He could let go of the rigid control he’d maintained in front of Alf. His fists were knotted, and he realized it was because his hands were trembling. In fact, his whole body was shaking. His stomach felt sick. He could feel his heart hammering against his ribs, as if he’d just run a fast mile, and his breathing was jerky and rapid.
Shock. For the first time in years, he felt on the verge of tears. Jumbled thoughts raced through his head, all of them centered on his small daughter. Losing a leg was one thing, but what if the cancer had spread?
What would become of McKensy if he died? She was only nine, and he was the parent raising her. His ex, Jessica, had left them when McKensy was about to turn four. Jessica wanted to be a jazz singer, and when an offer came to travel with a blues band, she’d taken it.
He and his ex-wife were friends now, but it had been a tough four years. Tony knew Jessica loved their daughter, and she came to visit whenever time and distance permitted, but the life she’d chosen to lead wasn’t one that could include a child.
After his divorce, and after two bad experiences with housekeepers, Tony had asked his mother, Dorothy, to move in with him and McKensy. The timing was right. Dorothy had just sold the family home and bought a condo, which she promptly rented out. The extra income meant she was better off than she’d ever been, and of course Tony paid her well for caring for McKensy.
He was grateful to his mother, but for very good reasons he absolutely didn’t want Dorothy raising his daughter single-handed. His mother was a kind and loving grandmother, but she was also a neurotic and bitter woman, still obsessed with the fact that Tony’s father had walked out on her years before.
He had a brother and two sisters, but to which of them would he entrust his daughter? They all loved McKensy, but their lives were busy and full. Two of them had children of their own. His single sister was plowing her way through med school and had another grueling three years to go.
For a moment, he gave in to the despair that overwhelmed him, and felt the strange sensation of tears welling up in his eyes. Horrified, he used his fist to swipe at the moisture that escaped down his cheeks.
With no warning knock, the door opened. “Tony O’Connor?”
He scrabbled for a tissue and turned his head away until his eyes were dry.
A white-smocked young woman ignored his distress and gave him a wide smile. “Hi, I’m Lisa Bently. I’m here to take you down for a CAT scan.” She released the brakes on the bed and whizzed him out the door and down the hall, chattering as they sped along.
“Wrecked your ankle, huh? I did that last year, out jogging. I fell off the edge of the sidewalk. Hurts like fury, doesn’t it? Here we are. Looks like you’ll have a bit of a wait—this place is crazy today.” She angled the bed against the wall, one of four others.
“Look, Ms.—” Tony had to squint at her name tag. “Ms. Bently, would you just go in and tell the tech that I need this done stat?” He hated to pull rank, but there was no choice in this case. “Tell them the chief of staff is waiting and needs to be seen immediately.”
“Oh, they know, Doctor. But see, it’s first come first served. You’ll have to wait your turn like everybody else. Here’s a couple magazines.”
She plopped two outdated copies of Newsweek on his lap and was gone before he could say another word.
“Hell of a thing, ain’t it?” The elderly man in the bed across the hall propped himself up on his elbow and twisted his head around to talk. “S’posed to be the best medical system in the world, here in Canada, and still you gotta lie around goin’ rotten waiting for some test or another. What’re you in for?”
“My ankle.” Tony tried to be distant without being rude, but the old man was oblivious to subtlety. For the next thirty-five minutes, he regaled Tony with the entire history of his bowels and gall bladder operation. By the time an attendant finally came and wheeled him in, Tony felt numb. He went through the test without saying a single word, grateful for the silence, anxious for the results. When it was over, he asked to see the negatives, but the female attendant insisted that Jensen had to see them first.
“Look, I’m a doctor,” Tony insisted. It was getting harder to summon up his usual authoritative tone. He felt exhausted, and his stomach was upset again. The sense of unreality that had begun with the X ray intensified. Still, he tried. “I’m the chief of staff at this hospital. Surely I have the right to see my own results.”
“Sorry, Doctor.” The older woman shook her head. “You’re Dr. Jensen’s patient, and he didn’t leave any orders of that sort.”
By the time he’d been wheeled back to Emerg, Tony was seething again, focusing on the ridiculousness of the rules rather than thinking about what the results of the scan would reveal. But underneath the justifiable anger, he could feel anxiety eating away at his gut like acid.
Jensen came bustling in after another twenty-minute wait, a brown envelope clamped under his right arm, and Tony’s stomach cramped hard. The bile in his throat burned, and he had to swallow repeatedly before he could croak out, “Is it sarcoma?”
“Tony,” Jensen began in a hearty tone, avoiding eye contact again, “I don’t know how to tell you this. There’s been one hell of a mix-up—I owe you an apology. When I looked in the computer for the results of your X ray a while ago, I had no idea another Antony O’Connor had been seen in Emerg this morning. He was complaining of a sore lower leg, and he had an X ray shortly before you did. Turns out it was his X ray we were looking at, not yours. He does indeed have sarcoma.” With a triumphant gesture, Jensen whipped out the negatives from the envelope. “Now, this is you, and as you can see, there’s no fracture, and definitely no sarcoma. We can safely assume all that’s wrong is a severe sprain.”
The relief that flooded Tony was so intense he felt dizzy. It took several moments before utter fury edged out the thankfulness. How could such a gross mistake happen in his hospital? He opened his mouth to ask and the turmoil in his stomach intensified.
Suddenly he knew he was going to vomit. He stretched across Jensen, groping for a kidney basin. Jensen shoved one at him only seconds before he threw up.
With each expulsion, the burning in Tony’s chest intensified, and he began to have difficulty catching his breath. His intestines were on fire, and as his stomach convulsed in agony, he moaned and bent double.
“Easy, Tony.” Jensen was checking his blood pressure. Two ER nurses materialized and took over the task of monitoring vital signs.
“Acute GI symptoms,” Jensen concluded. “You have any history of intestinal problems, Tony?”
Tony gasped and shook his head. “Tylenol,” he managed to croak. “Four Tylenol…empty stomach…need water…”
Jensen gave him a small paper cup of water, and Tony swallowed it in one sip. “I just need some food,” he groaned, his eyes streaming from the pain in his chest and abdomen. “That Tylenol I took is killing me.”
Being told he probably had sarcoma hadn’t helped, either, but Tony didn’t have the breath to say so.
“Go down to the kitchen and ask for a bowl of clear broth,” Jensen barked at an aide, “and be quick about it.”
The burning subsided enough so that Tony could straighten. A nurse stayed with him, and when the aide arrived with a large bowl of broth on a tray, she cranked the back of the bed higher so he could sit more comfortably.
Tony had never been as grateful for a simple bowl of beef broth. He spooned it up, and almost immediately the pain in his chest and abdomen began to ease.
“Better?” The nurse smiled at him, and he was able to give her a facsimile of a smile in return.
He finished the entire bowl in less than two minutes. The nurse set the tray on a cart. Sinking back on the bed, he heaved a sigh—and with the speed and intensity of a killer wave rolling in, a sensation of extreme heat rushed over him. It grew more and more intense, and as he felt his throat begin to swell, panic overwhelmed him.
“Allergy,” he whispered with the last of his breath.
He heard the nurse shouting and was dimly aware of bodies surrounding him and voices talking in urgent tones. In the few moments before he lost consciousness, he knew he was about to die, after all.
CHAPTER THREE
“DID YOU HEAR THAT O’CONNOR’S now on a respirator in ICU?”
Leslie was taking hungry bites of her tuna sandwich. It was past two in the afternoon, and she and Kate were sitting in the hospital cafeteria.
“The whole story’s been flying back and forth on e-mail all day,” Kate said with a shake of her head that sent her auburn hair flying. “It’s hard to believe there could be such a series of problems, and with the chief of staff, of all people.”
“It would be funny if it hadn’t almost been tragic,” Leslie agreed. “The final straw was that new French chef in the kitchen.”
“Rene Lalonde,” Kate said. “I heard that he put eggshells in the beef broth. Now, why would he do that?”
“Apparently it’s a traditional French custom. It clarifies it or something. How was he to know that O’Connor was violently allergic to eggs? We had his allergy marked down on the admitting form, but none of us suspected there’d be eggshells in the broth. I tell you, I’ve seen some panic situations in the ER, but today took the prize. Practically every doctor in the entire hospital was down there at one point. Nobody could see any obvious reason for such extreme symptoms. It was Jensen who finally asked for a detailed list of what the broth was made of.”
“Tony’s going to be okay, isn’t he?” Kate felt ashamed of her earlier lack of sympathy for his medical problems. He certainly didn’t deserve to be in ICU on a respirator.
Leslie nodded. She finished her sandwich and gulped some of her coffee, swearing when it burned her tongue. “He’s stable at the moment, but it was touch-and-go there for a while. They even called next of kin—his family’s upstairs right now. Apparently his mom is really up in arms. According to the nurses, she’s been making noises about suing the hospital for malpractice.”
They looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Can you imagine the headlines?”
Kate could, only too well. “Sounds like Tony’s mom is really scared,” she mused. She struggled again with her personal feelings, but she knew what her professional role was. “I’ll go up and see what I can do. Maybe just talking to somebody would help her feel better about things.”
“Better you than me,” Leslie said, sounding skeptical. “One of the nurses up there told me the woman’s a real piece of work.”
“Well, I’d rather have her unload on me than on a lawyer.”
Leslie raised her eyebrows. “Anybody ever tell you that the normal reaction to a bad scene is to run the other way?”
Kate grinned. “Yeah, but I get paid good money for standing still and deflecting bullets. Back when I was nursing, I told myself I could do a lot more for emotional issues than I ever could for physical ones.” That conviction had inspired her to go back to school and take one course after the other in psychology and conflict management. “And you’re a great one to talk about running away from emergencies, Les. Besides, I’d like to meet Tony’s mother. Talking to someone’s mother can give a lot of insight into why their kids are the way they are.” Kate chewed the last of her bun, reflecting that she could use all the help she could get as far as Tony was concerned. It was humiliating to be able to resolve everyone else’s anger but her own.
“Yeah?” Leslie gave her a narrow-eyed look. “So that’s what you and Galina talk about each time I go to the bathroom, huh? You’re trying to analyze me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. Your mom tells me how sexy the guys in Rehab are and asks why you and I don’t spend more time down there. Beats me. By the way, how’s Galina doing with rehab these days, Les?”
Leslie’s mother, Galina Poulin, was in her seventies, stubborn, opinionated, funny and delightful. In January, she’d decided to wash the bathroom walls in the town house she and Leslie shared, and she’d fallen and broken her hip. Galina had stubbornly refused to consider physiotherapy until the night Kate came to dinner.
It had taken a great deal of persuasion to convince Galina to even visit the rehab unit. When at last she agreed, Kate introduced her to the therapists, and one of them, Isaac Harris, had charmed her and talked her into coming twice a week for therapy.
“She loves Isaac—she giggles and blushes when I tease her about him,” Leslie laughed. “She’s really making headway. I wondered there for a while if she’d ever walk again, but now she’s off the crutches, just using a cane. I owe you for that one, Kate.”
“Hey, your mom’s done it all by herself. I only hope I have half her energy when I’m her age.”
Leslie beamed. “Me, too. She’s one of my best friends.”
“Not many people can say that about a parent.” She never could, Kate reflected sadly. “It says a lot about the kind of person you are, Les, that you and Galina get along the way you do.”
“Yeah, doesn’t it? Divorced single female, emotionally dependent, insecure and tied to my mom’s apron strings.”
They looked at each other and chorused, “Not.”
The hospital’s PR system came on. “All ER staff please report back to Emerg, all staff back to Emerg, stat.”
Leslie groaned, gulped the last of her coffee and got to her feet. “I’m not sure I even wanna know what that’s about.”
“Good luck.”
“Today we need it,” Leslie sighed. “Let me know how you make out with Mother O’Connor.”
“I will. See you later.” Kate watched her friend hurry off, then finished her coffee and reluctantly made her way up to the Intensive Care Unit.
The nurse at the desk indicated which waiting room the O’Connor family were in and confirmed that Dr. O’Connor was steadily improving. As Kate headed down the hallway, she could hear a woman’s loud, angry voice.
“—never heard of such a thing, eggshells in soup. It had to be deliberate. God knows Tony has enemies here—he’s in a position of power and that always means stepping on somebody’s toes. Did you call the pastor like I said, Wilson? I’d like Reverend Anderson to come. I know they say Tony’s improving, but did you see his color? White as a sheet.”
Kate paused in the doorway. There were five people in the room, two men and three women. The plump, older woman with the tightly permed white hair must be Tony’s mother, Kate deduced. She’d been the one talking when Kate came in.
They all turned toward her. “Hello,” she said with a reassuring smile. “I’m Kate Lewis, the patient rep.” She directed her attention to the older woman, stepping toward her and extending a hand.
“And you are…?”
“I’m Dorothy O’Connor. I’m Dr. O’Connor’s mother.” She gave Kate an assessing look.
Dorothy’s eyes were red rimmed behind her pink-framed glasses, and her face had settled into what Kate thought were permanently dissatisfied lines. “How do you do?” Kate kept her hand extended, but Dorothy ignored it, so she turned to the others with a questioning smile.
Dorothy immediately took control. “This is my oldest son, Wilson O’Connor, and my son-in-law, Peter Shiffman.”
The men mumbled greetings, and then Dorothy introduced the two women. “And these are my daughters, Judy Shiffman and Georgia O’Connor.”
Judy was obviously older than Georgia, but both sisters were slender and of medium height. Judy had Tony’s dark hair, and was wearing a tailored dress, stockings and heels, her makeup meticulous. Georgia’s hair was fiery red, drawn up in a careless knot at the back of her head, and she wore jeans and no makeup. They each gave Kate a strained smile and a nod, although neither said anything beyond hello.
“I wonder if there’s something I can help you with?” Kate began. “Do you have any questions you need answered regarding Dr. O’Connor’s care? Any concerns you might have that you’d like to talk over? I know this is a very stressful time for you, and I’d like to make it easier in any way I can.” She directed her remarks at Dorothy.
“And just how can you make anything easier?” Dorothy’s voice was sarcastic. “This hospital won’t get away with this fiasco, you know. You just tell me how my son could sprain his ankle this morning and then end up in intensive care with his life slipping away from him.” She raised her glasses and dabbed at her eyes with the lacy handkerchief she held clutched in one hand, but anger overpowered tears. Her voice rose. “Why, it’s malpractice, plain and simple, any idiot can see that. My son’s a doctor, and he’s chief of staff here, too. It makes you wonder what happens to the ordinary Joe when he walks in off the street. What would the papers do if they got hold of this news? I can tell you there’d be an uproar, and rightly so.”
Tony’s brother, Wilson, stepped forward and put an arm around his mother, nodding in agreement and looking at Kate as if it was all her fault.
“Maybe we ought to give the Vancouver Sun a call,” he said to Kate in an accusing tone. “You people need to know that gross carelessness of this sort simply won’t be tolerated.” He sounded pompous and self-righteous. “Like Mother says, it’s malpractice, and someone should pay.”
Kate waited until he was finished speaking, reminding herself that this wasn’t about her. She took a deep breath and kept her voice even, her tone friendly and nonjudgmental. “It sounds as if you’re all very upset and angry, and you have every right to be. This must be terribly stressful for you.”
Dorothy snorted. “Darned right it’s stressful. My poor son is lying in there not able to talk—” she pointed dramatically toward the Intensive Care Unit, and her voice wobbled “—and not one person is doing anything about it. As far as I can tell, nobody even cares.”
Kate had to bite her tongue hard in order to keep from telling Dorothy that she was totally wrong, that the entire hospital was in an uproar. Specialists had been called in, and every physician, nurse, tech and aide was horrified at the series of events that had led to this emergency.
Everyone, down to the newest member of the cleaning staff, cared a great deal. But Kate knew that blocking Dorothy’s anger would only exacerbate it. Listening and sharing information were tried-and-true ways to defuse that anger, difficult as they were.
Now Georgia O’Connor stepped toward Kate, and she sounded more worried than angry. “Could you find out exactly what’s going on with Tony? They asked us to leave because a couple of doctors were examining him, and the nurse said they’d speak to us when they were done. They came out, but so far, nothing.” She drew in a shaky breath, obviously on the verge of tears. “We just want to know how he’s doing.” Her large brown eyes were filled with concern, her forehead creased in worried lines.
“Absolutely,” Kate said. “I’ll go now and check with the nurse, then I’ll come right back and let you know exactly what she says.”
Kate found four doctors grouped around the nursing station, and when she asked, they assured her that the chief was improving rapidly. She suggested that the family needed reassurance, and Dr. Clark agreed. He walked to the waiting room. Kate followed, listening quietly as the doctor, with admirable candor, explained the entire sequence of events to the O’Connor family without making a single excuse.
Dorothy interrupted repeatedly, her tone accusing, her manner confrontational, and Kate had to admire the way Clark listened with patience and forbearance and then each time quietly reiterated the fact that the patient was improving rapidly and it looked as if there’d be no further side effects. Tony would remain in intensive care overnight, but there was every reason to believe he’d be back on his feet within a day or so, and the medical staff were doing everything in their power to help him recover.
“Exactly what does that mean?” Wilson O’Connor demanded. “It sounds as if my brother’s at death’s door already because of the incompetence of the staff around here.”
“What’s happened is unfortunate,” Clark said. “But we really are doing our best for Tony, I assure you. I consider him a friend as well as a colleague.”
Tony’s mother gave another snort. “With friends like he’s got here at St. Joseph’s, I’d like to know who needs enemies.”
Dr. Clark’s face flushed at this obvious insult and he gave a pointed glance at his watch, nodded to everyone and walked out of the room, murmuring excuses about being late for an appointment.
“Can’t stand to hear the truth,” Dorothy said in a self-satisfied voice.
“Actually, you were pretty rude to him, Mom.” Georgia’s chin rose, and she returned her mother’s belligerent gaze. “He was only trying to be helpful.”
“Well, we all know whose side you’re on, don’t we?” Dorothy’s skin flushed magenta, and her eyes narrowed as she glared at her daughter. “Just because you’re hoping to be a doctor yourself doesn’t mean you ought to defend something like this.”
Georgia swallowed and it was obvious she was holding back tears. “I’m on Tony’s side. All I care about is that he gets better. I don’t think laying blame on anybody is helpful.”