Angels in the ER (13 page)

Twenty minutes later, we had our answer. Dr. John Abernathy’s chest X-ray was hanging on the view box just outside the observation room. He had a large pneumonia in his left lung, explaining the fever, the cough, and the chest pain. At his age this was a serious problem, but with antibiotics and fluids he should be better in a few days.

Virginia Granger walked over and stood beside me. “Pneumonia?” she asked, pointing to the irregular whited-out area in his left chest.

“Yeah, and a pretty good one,” I answered.

She looked at me over the top of her bifocals. “I guess you found out he’s an interesting bird,” she said. “He’s been through a lot, I understand. I have a friend who lives on the same street and she tells me that after his wife died a few years ago, he mainly stays in the house. Doesn’t get out much at all. And no family here in town.” She paused and then, “Pretty lonely, I suppose. And if he has to be admitted to the hospital, he’s not going to like it.”

Not many people liked the idea of having to go into a hospital, but I was curious about her comment. “Why do you say that?”

“Well, Dr. Lesslie, you may think I’m ‘old school,’ ” she said while adjusting the starched nursing cap seated squarely on the top of her head, “but John Abernathy is
really
‘old school.’ He comes from an era when the family doctor was one of the pillars of the community. Everybody knew him and respected him. He couldn’t go anywhere without people coming up and shaking his hand and saying they’d never forget how he’d helped their mother, or wife, or son. That’s just the way it was. And now…” she sighed, shaking her head. “Well, now…you didn’t even recognize him, did you?”

“No, I—”

“And that’s okay,” she interrupted. “He’s been out of the mainstream for a lot of years. I was thinking a minute ago that I’m the only one here in the department who knows who he is. Maybe one of only a handful in the whole hospital. Sorta sad, don’t you think?”

It was a rhetorical question, and I waited as she mused. Then she continued, “Sad because he built his whole life around that idea, of his being the town doctor. And now, what does all that matter? Who cares anymore, except maybe him? He’s just kind of lost out there, drifting.”

She was right, of course. Treating John’s pneumonia would be the most straightforward part of his care.

I needed to inform Dr. Abernathy of his diagnosis and that we would be admitting him to the hospital. I was just stepping into room 5 when I overhead Frank, one of our lab techs. “Okay, buddy, this might stick just a little.” He was preparing to draw blood from
Dr. Abernathy’s left arm. John had winced when Frank said this, but it was not from the anticipated poke of the needle. It was from being addressed as “buddy.” That had stung, and I wasn’t sure how he was going to respond.

To my surprise, the wince faded to a look of resignation, and he remained silent. His shoulders slumped, and for the first time, he looked like an old man.

My next shift was two days later. Mid-morning, I had the chance to go upstairs and check on some of the patients we had admitted when I had last worked. I especially wanted to check on John Abernathy.

“302,” the unit secretary told me. “You’ll be his first visitor.”

Room 302 was near the nursing station and I only had a short walk. Pushing the door open, I tapped on it lightly. “Dr. Abernathy?”

Hearing no response, I stepped into the room. John was sitting in bed, reclining at 45 degrees, with his head supported by a pillow. The wall-mounted television had not been turned on, and he was staring out the window.

He turned as I entered. “Hello, Dr. Lesslie,” he said. “Came by to make sure I hadn’t gone AWOL?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” I responded, smiling. “And to see if you needed anything.”

“Well, thanks,” he said. “Actually, I think I’m doing pretty well. No more fever and the chest pain is much better. That young whippersnapper of an internist tells me I might be able to go home in a day or two. Still wet behind the ears, but he seems to know what he’s doing,” he conceded.

“But the food here is terrible,” he continued. “Used to be better. Or at least I think it did.” He paused then, a perplexed look on his face. “But you know, maybe it’s always been terrible. How would I know? I’ve never been a patient before this.”

We talked for a few minutes and then it was time for me to head back to the department.

“Dr. Abernathy, take care of yourself and get better,” I told him. “You’re in good hands, so just do what they ask you to do, okay?”

“You must have been talking to Virginia Granger,” he replied sardonically. “Always had to keep an eye on that one.”

I laughed. “Yeah, Virginia has told me a thing or two about you. And yes, you do have to keep an eye on her.”

I was pulling the door open to leave when John Abernathy spoke quietly behind me. “Dr. Lesslie…Robert. If you get the chance tomorrow, and I’m still here…would you come by again and we’ll chat? But only if you get the chance.”

“I’ll make the chance, John. If you’re still here and not at home,” I told him.

“Thanks.”

The door closed behind me, and I stood in the hallway for a moment, thinking.

“Excuse us,” an orderly spoke from behind me. “Comin’ through.”

He was pushing a wheelchair occupied by a teenager. The boy was dressed in his street clothes and was probably being discharged. As they rolled by, the door across the hall opened. Two nurses walked out of the room, looked over at me, nodded, and continued their conversation.

“I can’t believe she can get away with that,” one of the nurses said. Then their conversation faded and became unintelligible as they walked off toward the nursing station.

The overhead intercom crackled. “Dr. Smith, report to Radiology
stat.
Dr. Smith to Radiology.”

On it went—life, time, people. For another minute I just watched and listened.

 7 

Demon Rum

Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever
is led astray by them is not wise.

—P
ROVERBS 20:1

U
nder the influence of alcohol, people do and say things they would never dream of when sober. We see this demonstrated every day in the ER. Sadly, these actions cannot be undone, nor can these words ever be unsaid. Wine is indeed a mocker.

The voices behind the curtain of room 2 had been quiet enough at the beginning. The mother and father of our fifteen-year-old patient had arrived in the department and had just entered the cubicle. They were checking on their son, asking how he was, making sure he was okay.

EMS had brought Johnny to the ER after he had been involved in a minor auto accident. He had recently received his learner’s permit, and it seems he and a couple of friends had clandestinely taken one of the family cars out for a spin. One of the older boys had managed to procure two six-packs of beer, and off they went.

It was three o’clock on a warm May afternoon, and it wasn’t long before the beer was consumed. The group decided to tour several neighborhoods near Johnny’s home, with him woozily at the wheel. He failed to negotiate a sharp turn in Forest Hills Estates and went on to carve a new driveway through an azalea bed. Then he smashed
a large, concrete birdbath before finally wedging the sedan between two pine trees.

Johnny had banged his forehead on the steering wheel. It was nothing serious, just a few bruises and a small laceration that would need to be repaired. When he tried to exit the car, he found the driver’s door firmly jammed by one of the trees. Looking around, he realized his friends were nowhere to be found. They had managed to climb through one of the back windows and had taken off.

Through the fog of his five beers, the young man was beginning to understand his plight. He shuddered as he looked up through the shattered windshield of his father’s car. There, on the front steps, stood the lady of the house. She was in her mid-sixties, wearing a floral housedress and a navy-blue apron. She stood stone still, staring at the wreckage of her yard, her fists angrily planted on her hips.

Johnny just shook his head, slumped in the seat, and waited. Within minutes, the police and EMS had arrived.

The voices behind the curtain were becoming a little louder, a little more agitated. It seemed to mainly be the father, but occasionally we could hear the son as well.

“What…! Who were…No, you just hold on…!” A few words and phrases carried across the department. Outbursts and unintelligible pieces of sentences, but clearly the temperature in room 2 was rising.

Amy Conners looked up from her logbook. “You might need to go check on things in there,” she said to me, tilting her head in the direction of the voices. “Think I should call Security?”

“No, we won’t need that,” I assured her. “They’ll calm down in a minute. But I’ll go over and have a few words with them.”

I was reasonably confident in my assessment of the situation. I had briefly spoken to Johnny’s parents when they arrived in the ER. They seemed calm enough, though obviously concerned. His father was a professional of some description and was dressed in a business suit. His mother was tall, slender, and very quiet, letting her husband ask the questions for the two of them.

As I made my way to room 2, the sounds coming from behind the curtain took an ominous turn. The distance was only a matter of a few steps. But in the moments it took to cross that brief space, I clearly heard the father yelling at Johnny and Johnny responding with slurred expletives. Then came the sounds of scuffling, of the stretcher being pushed against the wall, and the grunts of two men struggling with each other. Then a woman’s scream. And silence.

“Hold on here!” I demanded, pulling the curtain aside and stepping into the room.

I will never forget the bizarre and troubling scene played out before me. Johnny’s father stood nearest me, his fists clenched by his side, his hair tousled and his tie flipped over his shoulder. He stood glaring at his son. Johnny was standing only a foot or so from his father. His head was hanging down, and his T-shirt was rumpled and pulled out of his jeans. A thread of blood trickled down his forehead from the still-open laceration. His arms hung limply by his side and he stared at the floor. He swayed a little from side to side, still quite drunk.

Then I noticed his mother. She stood cowering in the back corner of the room, pressing herself against the end of the stretcher and the countertop. She held her face with both hands, her eyes staring. She was looking from her son to her husband, and back to her son again. Tears streamed down her cheeks. The only sound in the room was her muffled sobbing.