“Absolutely,” the two students reiterated.
“We are justly proud of our success with infection control,” Dr. English continued. “But some of the statistics are not for general consumption. I hope you understand.”
This time both students nodded agreement without verbalizing.
“Good!” Dr. English said. “I will let the president know that you understand now about this unfortunate anesthesia case and the need not to discuss it. I can assure you that it is already being carefully investigated by the Anesthesia Department. If you are interested in hearing about the investigation and what is learned, I imagine I will be able to get the chief of surgery to invite you to the morbidity and mortality session when it will be discussed. Would that be of interest?”
“Absolutely,” Lynn said. Michael nodded.
“Okay,” Dr. English said, looking down at her desk and moving the stack of papers she had signed to the side. “That is all.” Without even looking up again, she reached for her phone and started speaking with her secretary about putting a call through to Dr. Feinberg.
Mildly surprised by the suddenness of the meeting’s end, but without needing any further encouragement, the two students quickly left. It wasn’t until they got back into the hustle and bustle of the hospital that they slowed enough to speak to each other. First they fist bumped. They had to talk loudly to be heard.
“That was a piece of cake,” Lynn said.
“Right on!” Michael said. “But it could have gone either way. It was a good thing we thought about what to say if she asked how we knew about Carl. That tipped the balance. It was like putting in a three-pointer at the buzzer from downtown to win the b-ball game. You did good, girl!”
“It’s weird she never mentioned Carl’s name.” The slight euphoria she’d felt from surviving the meeting with the dean was already beginning to evaporate.
“I noticed that, too. But what I found weirder is that we went in there expecting to get busted, and we come out with increased access to the hospital data bank. We might take advantage of that. Hospital-acquired infection is serious shit.”
“It might be,” Lynn said. She sighed. “But right now I’m not interested. Now I want to talk about Carl being sent to the Shapiro.” There was a sudden catch in her voice.
“Hold off, woman. Wait until we get back to the dorm. If there’s a chance you might bust out bawling, I don’t want people gaping at us. You know what I’m saying?”
Lynn got the message loud and clear and appreciated how he worded it. The fact that someone with his intelligence and academic record could so easily flip back and forth from Oxford English to the language of the ’hood amazed her. It always did, and he knew it, which is why he did it, and only with her. For her it emphasized their closeness. With everyone else, including patients, he always spoke with the diction of a college English professor.
And she knew he was right about her possibly losing control. For the moment she had her act together, but she knew that might change when she started talking about what was in Carl’s limited and dismal future.
They cut through the nearly deserted clinic as they normally did. Only a few stragglers were still waiting to be seen. Outside it was a beautiful Charleston early evening. The sun was still reasonably strong, with another two hours of early-spring daylight left. After they had walked for several hundred feet through the landscaped inner courtyard with flowers busting out of their beds, Lynn slowed. Like she had the day before, she couldn’t help gazing at the hulking granite silhouette of the Shapiro Institute. The mere sight of it brought on the rush of emotion that she had been holding back.
“I cannot believe that Carl might be shut away in there,” Lynn said, losing the battle of fighting off tears. “He might even be going this evening.”
Hearing her voice tremble, Michael guided her off the main walkway and over to an empty park bench, half-hidden by shrubbery from the considerable pedestrian traffic. They sat down. They were far enough out of the way that the other students trekking back to the dorm didn’t see them, or if they happened to look in their direction, didn’t pay them any heed, which was good, because Lynn quickly lost it and suffered through an extended bout of tears. Michael didn’t say anything, thinking it best for her to let it out.
When Lynn finally had herself under control and could talk, he asked how she had found out that Carl might be going to the Shapiro.
“From Dr. Erikson,” Lynn managed. There were still catches in her voice, but she was succeeding in calming herself down.
“She called you?”
“No. I ran into her,” Lynn said. She found a tissue in one of her jacket pockets and carefully dried her eyes. “I went back to the neuro ICU before we met with the dean because I was worried that afterward I might not be allowed. I thought it might be the last time I got to see him for a long time. I also wanted to see what the serum electrophoresis test showed.”
“Was it abnormal?”
“It was, which is why Erikson was there doing a formal consult.”
“How abnormal?”
“Only mildly so far. Just a small spike in the gamma globulin curve, but my sense is that Dr. Erikson expects it to get worse. She was quite friendly to me this time, but I have to say, I find her strange and unpredictable.”
“How did she happen to tell you Carl might be transferred?”
“It just came out in the conversation. She is one weird lady. I can’t read her at all. One minute she seems friendly, the next pissed. Maybe she doesn’t feel well because, frankly, she doesn’t look well. Anyway, remember I told you she asked me to let her know if we came to any conclusions about how Carl or Morrison became comatose. Well, today she added to the list. She wants me to tell her if I hear anyone in Anesthesia talking about gammopathy. Now, I find that strange. I mean, why is she asking me, a medical student? As an attending she could ask anybody she wanted to in the Anesthesia Department, including Rhodes.”
“It sure as hell means she bought into our ruse about anesthesia,” Michael said. “But she has to know that no one in Anesthesia is going to be talking about gammopathy. There is no way anesthesia and serum protein abnormalities can be related.”
“I’m not so sure,” Lynn said as finished drying her eyes. “There is something about all this that smells bad.”
“Oh, come on, girl! There’s nothing about anesthesia that is antigenic. It has been used in millions upon millions of cases without pumping up anybody’s immune system. There is no association.”
“Let’s put it this way,” Lynn said. “I’m just not sure. We have three cases in which it seems to have played some role.”
“Only one that we know for sure: Morrison.”
“Carl could be developing a gammopathy and Ashanti must have had one, too, if she has multiple myeloma. This can’t be by chance. Something is not right in all this. And I’ll tell you something else: If and when Carl goes into that place, come hell or high water, I’m going to go in there and visit him.”
“They are not going to let you visit,” Michael said. “They were very clear about that. Only immediate family is allowed, and you, my friend, are not immediate family.”
“I wouldn’t be satisfied with that kind of visit even if they let me,” Lynn said with a wave of dismissal. “I want to go into the place and actually see how Carl is being treated, not look at him through a plate-glass window.”
“Come on, girl! You can’t be serious. They are not going to let you do that.”