Nothing Lasts Forever (12 page)

“Sit down.”

She took a seat opposite him. “How long have you had Parkinson’s?”

He turned a shade whiter. “What?”

“That’s it, isn’t it? You’ve been trying to cover it up.”

There was a heavy silence. “I…I…yes. But I…I can’t give up being a doctor. I…I just can’t give it up. It’s my whole life.”

Paige leaned forward and said earnestly, “You don’t have to give up being a doctor, but you shouldn’t be operating.”

He looked suddenly old. “I know. I was going to quit last year.” He smiled wanly. “I guess I’ll have to quit now, won’t I? You’re going to tell Dr. Wallace.”

“No,” Paige said gently. “
You’re
going to tell Dr. Wallace.”

Paige was having lunch in the cafeteria when Tom Chang joined her.

“I heard what happened,” he said. “Bowman! Unbelievable. Nice work.”

She shook her head. “I almost had the wrong man.”

Chang sat there, silent.

“Are you all right, Tom?”

“Do you want the ‘I’m fine,’ or do you want the truth?”

“We’re friends. I want the truth.”

“My marriage has gone to hell.” His eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Sye has left. She’s gone back home.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not her fault. We didn’t have a marriage anymore. She said I’m married to the hospital, and she’s right. I’m spending my whole life here, taking care of strangers, instead of being with the people I love.”

“Shell come back. It will work out,” Paige said soothingly.

“No. Not this time.”

“Have you thought about counseling, or…?”

“She refuses.”

“I’m sorry, Tom. If there’s anything I…” She heard her name on the loudspeaker.

“Dr. Taylor, Room 410…”

Paige felt a sudden pang of alarm. “I have to go,” she said. Room 410. That was Sam Bernstein’s room. He was one of her favorite patients, a gentle man in his seventies who had been brought in with inoperable stomach cancer. Many of the patients at the hospital were constantly complaining, but Sam Bernstein was an exception. Paige admired his courage and his dignity. He had a wife and two grown sons who visited him regularly, and Paige had grown fond of them, too.

He had been put on life-support systems with a note, DNR—Do Not Resuscitate—if his heart stopped.

When Paige walked into his room, a nurse was at the bedside. She looked up as Paige entered. “He’s gone, doctor. I didn’t start emergency procedures, because…” Her voice trailed off.

“You were right not to,” Paige said slowly. “Thank you.”

“Is there anything I…?”

“No. I’ll make the arrangements.” Paige stood by the bedside and looked down at the body of what had been a living, laughing human being, a man who had a family and friends, someone who had spent his life working
hard, taking care of the ones he loved. And now…

She walked over to the drawer where he kept his possessions. There was an inexpensive watch, a set of keys, fifteen dollars in cash, dentures, and a letter to his wife. All that remained of a man’s life.

Paige was unable to shake the feeling of depression that hung over her. “He was such a dear man. Why…?”

Kat said, “Paige, you can’t let yourself get emotionally involved with your patients. It will tear you apart.”

“I know. You’re right, Kat. It’s just that…it’s over so quickly, isn’t it? This morning he and I were talking. Tomorrow is his funeral.”

“You’re not thinking of going to it?”

“No.”

The funeral took place at the Hills of Eternity Cemetery.

In the Jewish religion, burial must take place as soon as possible following the death, and the service usually takes place the next day.

The body of Sam Bernstein was dressed in a
takhrikhim,
a white robe, and wrapped in a
talit.
The family was gathered around the graveside. The rabbi was intoning,
“Hamakom y’nathaim etkhem b’tokh sh’ar availai tziyon veeyerushalayim.”

A man standing next to Paige saw the puzzled expression on her face, and he translated for her. “ ‘May the Lord comfort you with all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.’”

To Paige’s astonishment, the members of the family began tearing at the clothes they were wearing as they chanted,
“Baruch ata adonai elohainu melech haolam dayan ha-emet.”

“What…?”

“That’s to show respect,” the man whispered. “From dust you are and to dust you have returned, but the spirit returns to God who gave it.”

The ceremony was over.

The following morning, Kat ran into Honey in the corridor. Honey looked nervous.

“Anything wrong?” Kat asked.

“Dr. Wallace sent for me. He asked me to be in his office at two o’clock.”

“Do you know why?”

“I think I messed up at rounds the other day. Dr. Ritter is a monster.”

“He can be,” Kat said. “But I’m sure everything will be all right.”

“I hope so. I just have a bad feeling.”

Promptly at two o’clock, she arrived at Benjamin Wallace’s office, carrying a small jar of honey in her purse. The receptionist was at lunch. Dr. Wallace’s door was open. “Come in, Dr. Taft,” he called.

Honey walked into his office.

“Close the door behind you, please.”

Honey closed the door.

“Take a seat.”

Honey sat down across from him. She was almost trembling.

Benjamin Wallace looked across at her and thought,
It’s like kicking a puppy. But what has to be done has to be done.
“I’m afraid I have some unfortunate news for you,” he said.

One hour later, Honey met Kat in the solarium. Honey sank into a chair next to her, smiling.

“Did you see Dr. Wallace?” Kat asked.

“Oh, yes. We had a long talk. Did you know that his wife left him last September? They were married for fifteen years. He has two grown children from an earlier marriage, but he hardly ever sees them. The poor darling is so lonely.”

I
t was New Year’s Eve again, and Paige, Kat, and Honey ushered in 1994 at Embarcadero County Hospital. It seemed to them that nothing in their lives had changed except the names of their patients.

As Paige walked through the parking lot, she was reminded of Harry Bowman and his red Ferrari.
How many lives were destroyed by the poison Harry Bowman was selling?
she wondered. Drugs were so seductive. And, in the end, so deadly.

Jimmy Ford showed up with a small bouquet of flowers for Paige.

“What’s this for, Jimmy?”

He blushed. “I just wanted you to have it. Did you know I’m getting married?”

“No! That’s wonderful. Who’s the lucky girl?”

“Her name is Betsy. She works at a dress shop. We’re going to have half a dozen kids. The first girl is going to be named Paige. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind? I’m flattered.”

He was embarrassed. “Did you hear the one about the doctor who gave a patient two weeks to live? ‘I can’t pay you right now,’ the man said. ‘All right, I’ll give you another two weeks.’”

And Jimmy was gone.

Paige was worried about Tom Chang. He was having violent mood swings from euphoria to deep depression.

One morning during a talk with Paige, he said, “Do you realize that most of the people in here would die without us? We have the power to heal their bodies and make them whole again.”

And the next morning: “We’re all kidding ourselves, Paige. Our patients would get better faster without us. We’re hypocrites, pretending that we have all the answers. Well, we don’t.”

Paige studied him a moment. “What do you hear from Sye?”

“I talked to her yesterday. She won’t come back here. She’s going ahead with the divorce.”

Paige put her hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry, Tom.”

He shrugged. “Why? It doesn’t bother me. Not anymore. Ill find another woman.” He grinned. “And have another child. You’ll see.”

There was something unreal about the conversation.

That night Paige said to Kat, “I’m worried about Tom Chang. Have you talked to him lately?”

“Yes.”

“Did he seem normal to you?”

“No man seems normal to me,” Kat said.

Paige was still concerned. “Let’s invite him for dinner tomorrow night.”

“All right.”

The next morning when Paige reported to the hospital, she was greeted with the news that a janitor had found Tom Chang’s body in a basement equipment room. He had died of an overdose of sleeping pills.

Paige was near hysteria. “I could have saved him,” she cried. “All this time he was calling out for help, and I didn’t hear him.”

Kat said firmly, “There’s no way you could have helped him, Paige. You were not the problem, and you were not the solution. He didn’t want to live without his wife and child. It’s as simple as that.”

Paige wiped the tears from her eyes. “Damn this place!” she said. “If it weren’t for the pressure and the hours, his wife never would have left him.”

“But she did,” Kat said gently. “It’s over.”

Paige had never been to a Chinese funeral before. It was an incredible spectacle. It began at the Green Street Mortuary in Chinatown early in the morning, where a crowd started gathering outside. A parade was assembled, with a large brass marching band, and at the head of the parade, mourners carried a huge blowup of a photograph of Tom Chang.

The march began with the band loudly playing, winding through the streets of San Francisco, with a hearse at the end of the procession. Most of the mourners were on foot, but the more elderly rode in cars.

To Paige, the parade seemed to be moving around the city at random. She was puzzled. “Where are they going?” she asked one of the mourners.

He bowed slightly and said, “It is our custom to take the departed past some of the places that have meaning in his life—restaurants where he ate, shops that he used, places he visited…”

“I see.”

The parade ended in front of Embarcadero County Hospital.

The mourner turned to Paige and said, “This is where Tom Chang worked. This is where he found his happiness.”

Wrong,
Paige thought.
This is where he lost his happiness.

Walking down Market Street one morning, Paige saw Alfred Turner. Her heart started pounding. She had not been able to get him out of her mind. He was starting to cross the street as the light was changing. When Paige got to the corner, the light had turned to red. She ignored it and ran out into the street, oblivious to the honking horns and the outraged cries of motorists.

Paige reached the other side and hurried to catch up with him. She grabbed his sleeve. “Alfred…”

The man turned. “I beg your pardon?”

It was a total stranger.

Now that Paige and Kat were fourth-year residents, they were performing operations on a regular basis.

Kat was working with doctors in neurosurgery, and she never ceased to be amazed at the miracle of the hundred
billion complex digital computers called neurons that lived in the skull. The work was exciting.

Kat had enormous respect for most of the doctors she worked with. They were brilliant, skilled surgeons. There were a few doctors who gave her a hard time. They tried to date her, and the more Kat refused to go out with them, the more of a challenge she became.

She heard one doctor mutter, “Here comes old ironpants.”

She was assisting Dr. Kibler at a brain operation. A tiny incision was made in the cortex, and Dr. Kibler pushed the rubber cannula into the left lateral ventricle, the cavity in the center of the left half of the brain, while Kat held the incision open with a small retractor. Her entire concentration was focused on what was happening in front of her.

Dr. Kibler glanced at her and, as he worked, said, “Did you hear about the wino who staggered into a bar and said, ‘Give me a drink, quick!’ ‘I can’t do that,’ the bartender said. ‘You’re already drunk.’”

The burr was cutting in deeper.

“ ‘If you don’t give me a drink, I’ll kill myself.’”

Cerebral spinal fluid flowed out of the cannula from the ventricle.

“‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ the bartender said. ‘There are three things I want. You do them for me, and I’ll give you a bottle.’”

As he went on talking, fifteen milliliters of air were injected into the ventricle, and X-rays were taken of the anterior-posterior view and the lateral view.

“‘See that football player sitting in the corner? I can’t get him out of here. I want you to throw him out. Next, I have a pet crocodile in my office with a bad tooth. He’s so mean I can’t get a vet to go near him. Lastly, there’s a
lady doctor from the Department of Health who’s trying to close up this place. You fuck her, and you get the bottle.’”

A scrub nurse was using suction to reduce the amount of blood in the field.

“The wino throws out the football player, and goes into the office where the crocodile is. He comes out fifteen minutes later, all bloody, and his clothes torn, and he says, ‘Where’s the lady doctor with the bad tooth?’”

Dr. Kibler roared with laughter. “Do you get it? He fucked the crocodile instead of the doctor. It was probably a better experience!”

Kat stood there, furious, wanting to slap him.

When the operation was over, Kat went to the on-call room to try to get over her anger.
I’m not going to let the bastards beat me down. I’m not.

From time to time, Paige went out with doctors from the hospital, but she refused to get romantically involved with any of them. Alfred Turner had hurt her too deeply, and she was determined never to go through that again.

Most of her days and nights were spent at the hospital. The schedule was grueling, but Paige was doing general surgery and she enjoyed it.

One morning, George Englund, the chief of surgery, sent for her.

“You’re starting your specialty this year. Cardiovascular surgery.”

She nodded. “That’s right.”

“Well, I have a treat for you. Have you heard of Dr. Barker?”

Paige looked at him in surprise. “Dr.
Lawrence
Barker?”

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

Everyone had heard of Lawrence Barker. He was one of the most famous cardiovascular surgeons in the world.

“Well, he returned last week from Saudi Arabia, where he operated on the king. Dr. Barker’s an old friend of mine, and he’s agreed to give us three days a week here.
Pro bono.
”

“That’s fantastic!” Paige exclaimed.

“I’m putting you on his team.”

For a moment, Paige was speechless. “I…I don’t know what to say. I’m very grateful.”

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for you. You can learn a lot from him.”

“I’m sure I can. Thank you, George. I really appreciate this.”

“You’ll start your rounds with him tomorrow morning at six o’clock.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“Looking forward to it” was an understatement. It had been Paige’s dream to work with someone like Dr. Lawrence Barker.
What do I mean, “someone like Dr. Lawrence Barker”? There’s only one Dr. Lawrence Barker.

She had never seen a photograph of him, but she could visualize what he looked like. He would be tall and handsome, with silver-gray hair, and slender, sensitive hands. A warm and gentle man.
We’ll be working closely together,
Paige thought,
and I’m going to make myself absolutely indispensable. I wonder if he’s married?

That night, Paige had an erotic dream about Dr. Barker. They were performing an operation in the nude. In the middle of it, Dr. Barker said, “I want you.” A nurse
moved the patient off the operating table and Dr. Barker picked Paige up and put her on the table, and made love to her.

When Paige woke up, she was falling off the bed.

At six o’clock the following morning, Paige was nervously waiting in the second-floor corridor with Joel Philips, the senior resident, and five other residents, when a short, sour-faced man stormed toward them. He leaned forward as he walked, as though battling a stiff wind.

He approached the group. “What the hell are you all standing around for? Let’s go!”

It took Paige a moment to regain her composure. She hurried along to catch up with the rest of the group. As they moved along the corridor, Dr. Barker snapped, “You’ll have between thirty and thirty-five patients to care for every day. Ill expect you to make detailed notes on each one of them. Clear?”

There were murmurs of “Yes, sir.”

They had reached the first ward. Dr. Barker walked over to the bed of a patient, a man in his forties. Barker’s gruff and forbidding manner went through an instant change. He touched the patient gently on the shoulder and smiled. “Good morning. I’m Dr. Barker.”

“Good morning, doctor.”

“How are you feeling this morning?”

“My chest hurts.”

Dr. Barker studied the chart at the foot of the bed, then turned to Dr. Philips. “What do his X-rays show?”

“No change. He’s healing nicely.”

“Let’s do another CBC.”

Dr. Philips made a note.

Dr. Barker patted the young man on the arm and
smiled. “It’s looking good. We’ll have you out of here in a week.” He turned to the residents and snapped, “Move it! We have a lot of patients to see.”

My God!
Paige thought.
Talk about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!

The next patient was an obese woman who had had a pacemaker put in. Dr. Barker studied her chart. “Good morning, Mrs. Shelby.” His voice was soothing. “I’m Dr. Barker.”

“How long are you going to keep me in this place?”

“Well, you’re so charming, I’d like to keep you here forever, but I have a wife.”

Mrs. Shelby giggled. “She’s a lucky woman.”

Barker was examining her chart again. “I’d say you’re just about ready to go home.”

“Wonderful.”

“I’ll stop by to see you this afternoon.”

Lawrence Barker turned to the residents. “Move on.”

They obediently trailed behind the doctor to a semiprivate room where a young Guatemalan boy lay in bed, surrounded by his anxious family.

“Good morning,” Dr. Barker said warmly. He scanned the patient’s chart. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“I am feeling good, doctor.”

Dr. Barker turned to Philips. “Any change in the electrolytes?”

“No, doctor.”

“That’s good news.” He patted the boy’s arm. “You hang in there, Juan.”

The mother asked anxiously, “Is my son going to be all right?”

Dr. Barker smiled. “We’re going to do everything we can for him.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

Dr. Barker stepped out into the corridor, the others trailing behind him. He stopped. “The patient has myocardiopathy, irregular fever tremors, headaches, and localized edema. Can any of you geniuses tell me what the most common cause of it is?”

There was a silence. Paige said hesitantly, “I believe it’s congenital…hereditary.”

Dr. Barker looked at her and nodded encouragingly.

Pleased, Paige went on. “It skips…wait…” She was struggling to remember. “It skips a generation and is passed along by the genes of the mother.” She stopped, flushed, proud of herself.

Dr. Barker stared at her a moment. “Horseshit! It’s Chagas’ disease. It affects people from Latin American countries.” He looked at Paige with disgust. “Jesus! Who told you you were a doctor?”

Paige’s face was flaming red.

The rest of the rounds was a blur to her. They saw twenty-four patients and it seemed to Paige that Dr. Barker spent the morning trying to humiliate her. She was always the one Barker addressed his questions to, testing, probing. When she was right, he never complimented her. When she was wrong, he yelled at her. At one point, when Paige made a mistake, Barker roared, “I wouldn’t let you operate on my dog!”

When the rounds were finally over, Dr. Philips, the senior resident, said, “Well start rounds again at two o’clock. Get your scut books, make notes on each patient, and don’t leave anything out.”

He looked at Paige pityingly, started to say something, then turned away to join Dr. Barker.

Paige thought,
I never want to see that bastard again.