Sensing Light (13 page)

XVI

H
ERB FINISHED
ICU
SIGN-OUT
rounds early on Monday, picked up Martin at school, ran soccer practice at Dolores Park, then circled back to the hospital. When he arrived at his office, there was an urgent message posted on the door from a name he didn't recognize, an Elliot Reed from the local blood bank. It was almost six o'clock. He dialed the number anyway.

A gravelly voice answered, “Elliot Reed.”

“This is Herb Wu from City Hospital returning your call.”

“Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I need to locate the doctor of a patient named Anna Polchevek. Would that be you?”

Herb's heart sank. Sister Anna was a nun in her mid-sixties, a heavy smoker with chronic bronchitis whom Herb had been seeing in lung clinic for the last ten years. She had a ruddy complexion, wore an Isadora Duncan scarf over her habit, and made airy gestures while speaking. She mixed quaint phrases such as “Dear me” or “My goodness” with four letter words for various bodily functions. At her appointments, Sister Anna always inquired about his family.

“Yes,” Herb replied, his mouth dry as he recalled an episode of pneumonia she had a year ago. She was severely anemic at the time, and he had ordered a blood transfusion for her.

“Someone from the CDC is tracking GRID cases. He asked me to check if any of the names and birth dates on their list of cases match any of our blood donors.”

Reed paused.

What's he waiting for, Herb fumed. Am I supposed to connect the dots so he won't have to say anything else?

“There was one match,” Reed said evenly. “Two units of packed red cells from that donor were given to your patient Polchevek last January, apparently before the donor got sick.”

Herb expected to hear more. Then he understood Reed was only remaining on the line to verify Herb had received the information.

“So what am I supposed to tell her?”

“You'll have to talk to the CDC and find out what they recommend.”

“Shit!” hissed Herb.

“Sorry, I don't know anything about GRID. Obviously, this can't be good, but I can't advise you on what to tell her. Try the CDC.”

“Thanks,” Herb said icily and hung up the phone.

He paced inside his office until he was calm enough to call the convent. When Sister Anna came to the phone, he apologized for bothering her and asked if she would come to clinic tomorrow. His excuse was to explain the results of her recent x-rays. She agreed and had no questions.

XVII

K
EVIN SPENT ALL
M
ONDAY
in clinic. At dusk, he went across the street to see inpatients where he ran into Gwen. She had been on call since Sunday morning.

“Last progress note,” she said, closing a chart. “I'm out of here.”

“Get any sleep?”

“I did! A whole, uninterrupted hour.”

She didn't seem in a rush, so he brought up her post-residency plans, urging her again to apply for a general internal medicine attending position at City Hospital. Gwen said she had submitted the application and had also scheduled interviews at several public health clinics around the Bay Area.

“Stay here,” he pleaded. “The residents take care of the scut, and you'll get to teach them. You might get woken by a phone call in the middle of night once a month, if that. It'll be more fun than working in a public health clinic and way less time away from your family than this is.”

“Any job will be easier than this, Kevin. You know I'd love to be hired here. But they're not making any promises. I need other options.”

He put a hand to his forehead and gnashed his teeth in an operatic imitation of despair. Gwen's laughter stopped when her pager sounded.

“Damn!” she cried on seeing the number. “The ICU. Five more minutes, and I would have been signed out.”

“I'll be there in a bit,” he said as she hurried off. “If it's about Miller, I can take care of it.”

“You're sweet,” she called back to him.

Miller's sedation had been temporarily lightened that afternoon to look for signs of recovery. He became agitated and yanked out his intravenous line. A nurse attempted to re-insert a new one but had no success. Per hospital
policy, a medicine resident had to take the next try. If that failed, a surgeon could be called in to dissect down to a vein.

Gwen found Miller motionless except for the periodic rise and fall of his chest each time the ventilator pumped air into his lungs. She scrubbed his forearm with iodine and alcohol, tied a rubber tourniquet above his elbow, opened an intravenous catheter kit, and donned a pair of sterile gloves. Using the tip of her gloved finger, Gwen stroked Miller's skin, hunting for an engorged vein. Finding a promising bulge, she drove in a needle encased inside a white Teflon tube. Blood appeared. Satisfied she was in the right place, Gwen slid the white catheter off the needle into his vein. She was reaching backward to drop the needle in a sharps container when she felt wetness on her ankle. Turning her head, she saw blood dripping from the catheter onto her leg. Reaching back to pick up a piece of tubing, Gwen impaled the fleshy part of her left palm on the needle she was still gripping with her right hand.

Gwen stared at the needle for a numb moment before pulling it out. Eva crossed her mind. She's only twelve years old, Gwen thought. Then all thinking was submerged by a flood of nausea and disbelief.

As Kevin entered the ICU, he saw Gwen leave Miller's room. Her eyes were oddly glazed. She was wandering, not walking purposefully. This was beyond any post-call torpor. She passed him with no sign of recognition. Kevin followed her out the rear door into a resident sleeping room. She collapsed on a bed.

“What's wrong?”

“Unbelievably stupid!” she sobbed. “I stuck myself.”

“When?…Miller?”

She nodded yes and began shaking. Kevin sat next to her.

“Let me see.”

Gwen opened her palm. A bead of blood covered the puncture wound.

“It went in deep.”

She finally looked at him. The apprehension she saw in his face registered.

“Unbelievably fucking stupid!” she screamed.

Kevin disappeared and returned seconds later with a basin of iodine solution. He plunged Gwen's hand into the basin and held it down. The force of his hand on hers, pressing it to the bottom of the sterilizing bath, soothed her.

“Thank you,” she said, sniffling.

“Gwen, I know you've heard about IV drug users in New York with the syndrome. But think about it. A lot of immune deficiency patients have been hospitalized in the last two years, and not just here. Lots of hospital staff have had accidental needle sticks. Nobody has gotten sick.”

“Kevin, what about that nurse in Los Angeles who…”

He cut her short.

“Urban legend. The CDC has been searching hard and hasn't been able to document a single case in a health care worker who didn't have other risk factors—that's code for being gay or injecting drugs. You don't cruise bars in the Castro, do you? Been shooting heroin or speed with your buddies in the Haight lately?”

Gwen tried to smile.

“I'd be scared too, but think about facts. If whatever causes this disease can be transmitted by an accidental needle-stick, it hasn't happened yet. Which means the risk has got to be very, very low.”

She looked at the basin and said, “Kevin, the only thing reassuring me is the smell of iodine.”

They lapsed into silence, hands immersed together for the next five minutes. Then she stood up.

“Think that's long enough?”

“Probably. Go home, Gwen. I'll take care of Miller.”

“No, I don't want anyone else to know about this. If someone sees you putting in his IV, they'll ask questions.”

“I'm not going to tell anyone. Come on, Gwen. You've been here for thirty-six hours. If I tell people you don't feel well and I'm mopping up for you, they won't start wondering if you stuck yourself. They might think you're getting soft or maybe that I'm not really gay and have the hots for you.”

She didn't smile.

“I need to go back to work and stop thinking about this.”

“Gwen, you need to go home. Get some sleep.”

She gave him a look of utter incredulity.

“You've got to be kidding.”

“OK. If you can't sleep, at least get some rest.”

“Right,” she said, washing off the iodine.

“Talk to Rick. He'll be there for you.”

She didn't respond. Head bowed, Kevin followed her back into the ICU.

XVIII

T
HE MOMENT
K
EVIN OPENED
his front door, Marco shouted from the bedroom, “Your mother called.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“Briefly.”

Marco's evasive reply fueled Kevin's rising panic.

He ran to the bedroom and demanded, “What did she say?”

“She wants you to call her back, tonight. It's an emergency.”

“Details?”

“Come on, Kevin. I didn't ask. She doesn't even know who I am.”

Kevin blanched. His mother had never done anything like this since he had moved to California. Either his father, Katherine, or one of Katherine's children, must have died or be seriously ill.

His mother didn't answer until the sixth ring.

“Mom! What happened?”

“Kevin, your father went to the doctor today… He has lung cancer.”

“Jesus, Mom… I'm sorry.”

“They say it can't be cured.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

His mother started weeping.

“I wish there was. He says he won't talk to you. I don't know if you should come home or not.”

Kevin wanted to be supportive but couldn't control his rising anger. He remembered a stifling August afternoon in the garage, sitting on a brake fluid drum, cleaning used lug nuts and wheel studs with a wire brush while two mechanics carried on a lively conversation.

Kevin had tried not to listen as they mimicked Red Sox radio announcers and described the delectability or ugliness of every woman who walked past the open garage door. They expertly analyzed visible body parts and speculated on what was hidden underneath halter tops or shorts. To Kevin, it was cruel and demeaning. His father was standing right beside them, repairing a transmission. It was impossible that he could be naïve enough not to understand what they were saying. Yet he didn't tell them to stop.

No, Kevin thought, my father doesn't judge other people, just me.

“Will you ask him something?”

“All right.”

“Ask him how much more he needs to punish me? Tell him that people don't get life sentences unless they commit murder. I don't think being gay qualifies. Tell him it's time to commute my sentence.”

After a long pause, she said, “Say that again, Kevin, so I can write it down.”

His catharsis didn't last long. Ten minutes after hanging up, Kevin was distraught. He had no information and doubted it was possible to get any more from his mother. He would have to call Katherine, a most unpleasant prospect. As he dialed her phone number, he tried to be positive. When he last saw her, two years ago, it hadn't been as bad as he anticipated. Though she barely concealed her cold sarcasm, at one point she did ask about his work with genuine interest. Neither of his parents had ever done that. And at the end of her son's confirmation service, she confided in him—another quantum leap. She planned to stop being a stay-at-home mom. Douglas was old enough for her to get a job without feeling guilty. She had enrolled in a training program to become a licensed vocational nurse.

“It's Kevin. I heard about Dad…”

“Well, isn't it nice of you to call.”

There was no mistaking her indictment. A wave of resentment passed through him. He made no effort to suppress it. Instead, he took a deep breath and imagined the hair color, freckles, and jaunty tip of the nose they had in common. He thought of what they shared only with each other—growing up beholden to these two people, now so diminished.

“I know I'm not the perfect son who turns the other cheek. But what can I do if he won't talk to me?”

He prepared to be lambasted again.

She surprised him by saying, “OK, that's fair.”

“So what should I do, come to Boston and force myself on him?”

Kevin was even more surprised to hear himself make that suggestion.

“Yes!” she said, her voice breaking as she gave in to grief.

He had heard her cry before, behind the closed door of her bedroom, but not since she was a girl and never in his presence.

“He's going to die, isn't he?” she wailed.

“I don't know. I mean yes, but I don't know when. Some people with incurable lung cancer die in a month or two, some live for three or four years. The prognosis depends on the biopsy and x-ray results, and he doesn't want me to know anything. For sure, he won't give his doctors permission to talk to me, and it's a long shot I'll be able to get Mom to ask them the right questions.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Let me think.”

He grabbed on to one redeeming fact. As stubborn a bastard as the old man was, he had provided each of them with a tiny space, eight by ten feet, that was inviolate, exclusively theirs. At age thirty-three, after years of taking care of people who had been given far, far less in their childhood than he, Kevin appreciated that gift.

“Would he let you go with him to his next doctor's appointment?”

“I guess.”

“With real information, I could give you an idea of what to expect. How much time he's likely got left. How much radiation or chemotherapy might extend it and what the typical side effects would be if he's offered one of those treatments. Once you know that, you can help him figure out what he wants to do.”

“Fat chance he'll want my advice.”

Before he could respond, she blurted, “Come home, Kevin. Would you? Please.”

Kevin was trapped. Now he had to go. At least he had friends to stay with in Boston. Sleeping under the same roof with his father or Ben would be out of the question.

“OK. You get more information, and I'll see when I can get time off.”

Kevin hung up the phone and poured two inches of tequila into a glass tumbler. He downed it while undressing in the kitchen. He went to the bedroom, grabbed the journal Marco was reading, and tossed it on the floor.

After sex, Kevin gave Marco a terse account of his family drama and refused to discuss it further. That door closed, Marco asked how Miller was doing.

“The same. I don't think he's going to walk out of the hospital.”

Marco waited for details, but Kevin didn't elaborate.

“So, did you find out anything more about his past? Was he into bathhouses and poppers like the others?”

“I don't know. The friend who brought him to the ER wasn't sure.”

Marco nodded solemnly. He knew that nearly all of Kevin's patients, prior to getting sick, had regularly inhaled amyl nitrate sold on the street in glass ampules that could be broken or popped to release the vapor. He also knew the explanation for GRID Kevin secretly favored had to do with the drug's effect of enhancing orgasm by dilating blood vessels in the penis and anus, thus allowing access for vast numbers of sexually transmitted microbes to invade the body and destroy the immune system.

Although Kevin had never gone to a bathhouse, Marco had before they met. Not to the extent of Kevin's patients, a dozen anonymous partners at most. But Marco couldn't tolerate poppers. The one time he sampled the stimulant, he became too nauseated to have sex.

As Kevin looked into Marco's eyes, the tequila resurged in his head with the promise of sleep.

He resisted it long enough to kiss Marco on the lips and say, “Don't worry, baby. We're safe.”