Robin Cook - Fatal Cure

At the end of his office hours, David walked over to the central hospital building to check on Marjorie Kleber and a few other patients. Once he determined that all were doing well, he stopped by to see Nikki.

His daughter was feeling fine thanks to a judicious combination of antibiotics, mucolytic agents, bronchodilators, hydration, and physical therapy. She was leaning back against a pile of pillows with a TV remote in her hand. She was watching a game show, a pastime frowned upon at home.

"Well, well," David said. "If it isn't a true woman of leisure."

"Come on, Dad," Nikki said. "I haven't watched much TV. Mrs. Kleber came to my room, and I even had to do some school-work."

"That's terrible," David said with improvised dismay. "How's the breathing?"

After so many sojourns in the hospital, Nikki was truly experienced at assessing her condition. Pediatricians had learned to listen to her evaluations.

"Good," Nikki said. "It's still a little tight, but it's definitely better."

Angela appeared at the doorway. "Looks like I'm just in time for a family reunion," she said. She came in and gave both Nikki and David a hug. With Angela sitting on one side of the bed and David on the other, they talked with Nikki for half an hour.

"I want to go home," Nikki whined when David and Angela got up to go.

"I'm sure you do," Angela said. "And we want you home, but we have to follow Dr. Pilsner's orders. We'll talk to him in the morning."

After waving goodbye and watching her parents disappear down the hall, Nikki wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and reached for the TV remote. She was accustomed to being in the hospital, but she still didn't like it. The only good thing about it was that she could watch as much TV as she wanted and any type of programming-something she definitely couldn't get away with at home.

David and Angela didn't talk until they were outside under the awning covering the hospital's rear entrance. Even then the conversation was minimal. David merely said that it was silly for both of them to get wet and then ran to get the car.

On the way home there was no conversation. The only noise was the repetitive and lugubrious sound of the windshield wipers. David and Angela both thought the other was responding to a combination of Nikki's hospitalization, the disappointing weekend, and the incessant rain.

As if to confirm David's suspicions Angela broke the silence as they pulled into their driveway by telling David that a preliminary look at Nikki's sputum culture suggested pseudomonas aeruginosa. "That's not a good sign," Angela continued. "When that type of bacteria gets established in someone with cystic fibrosis it usually stays."

"You don't have to tell me," David said.

Dinner was a stifled affair without Nikki's presence. They ate at the kitchen table as the rain pelted the windows. Finally, after they'd finished eating, Angela found the emotional strength and the words to describe what had happened between herself and Wadley.

David's mouth had slowly opened as the story unfolded. By the time Angela was finished his mouth was gaping in astonishment. "That bastard!" David said. He slammed his palm down onto the table and angrily shook his head. "There were a couple of times it passed through my mind he was acting a bit too enamored, like the day at the hospital picnic. But then I convinced myself I was being ridiculously jealous. But it sounds like my intuition was right."

"I don't know for sure," Angela said. "Which is partly why I hesitated to tell you. I don't want us to jump to conclusions. It's confusing as much as it is aggravating. It's so unfair that we women have to deal with this kind of problem."

"It's an old problem," David said. "Sexual harassment has been around forever, especially since women joined the work force. It's been part of medicine for a long time, especially back when all doctors were men and all nurses were women."

"And it's still around despite the rapid increase in the number of women physicians," Angela said. "You remember some of the bullcrap I had to put up with from some of the medical school instructors."

David nodded. "I'm sorry this has happened," he said. "I know how pleased you'd been with Dr. Wadley. If you'd like I'll get in the car, drive over to his house, and punch him in the nose."

Angela smiled. "Thanks for the support."

"I thought you were being quiet tonight because you were worried about Nikki," David said. "Either that or angry about the weekend."

"The weekend is history," Angela said. "And Nikki is doing fine."

"I had a bad day too," David finally admitted. He got himself a beer from the refrigerator, took a long drink, and then told Angela about his utilization review with Kelley and the CMV man from Burlington.

"That's outrageous!" Angela said when David was finished. "What nerve to talk to you like that. Especially with the kind of positive response you've been getting from your patients."

"Apparently that's not a high priority," David said despondently.

"Are you serious? Everyone knows that doctor-patient relationships are the cornerstone of good medical care."

"Maybe that's passe," David said. "The current reality is determined by people like Charles Kelley. He's part of a new army of medical bureaucrats being created by government intervention. All of a sudden economics and politics have reached the ascendancy in the medical arena. I'm afraid the major concern is the bottom line on the balance sheet, not patient care."

Angela shook her head.

"The problem is Washington," David said. "Every time the government gets seriously involved in medical care they seem to screw things up. They try to please everybody and end up pleasing no one. Look at Medicare and Medicaid; they're both a mess and both have had a disastrous effect on medicine in general."

"What are you going to do?" Angela asked.

"I don't know," David said. "I'll try to compromise somehow. I guess I'll just take it a day at a time and see what happens. What about you?"

"I don't know either," Angela said. "I keep hoping that I was wrong, that I'm overreacting."

"It's possible, I suppose," David said gently. "After all, this is the first time you've felt this way. And all along Wadley's been a touchy-feely kind of guy. Since you never said anything up to this point, maybe he doesn't think you mind being touched."

"What exactly are you implying?" Angela demanded sharply.

"Nothing really," David said quickly. "I was just responding to what you said."

"Are you saying I brought this on myself?"

David reached across the table and grasped Angela's arm. "Hold on!" he said. "Calm down! I'm on your side. I don't think for a second that you are to blame."

Angela's sudden anger abated. She realized that she was overreacting, reflecting her own uncertainties. There was the possibility that she had been unknowingly encouraging Wadley. After all, she'd wanted to please the man as any student might, especially since she felt a debt to him for all the time and effort he'd expended on her behalf.

"I'm sorry," Angela said. "I'm just stressed out."

"Me too," David said. "Let's go to bed."

To David's and Angela's disappointment, it was still raining in the morning. In contrast to the gloomy weather, however, Nikki was in high spirits and doing marvelously. Even her color had returned. The sore throat, presaging an extended illness, had disappeared with the antibiotics, indicating that if it had been infectious, it had been bacterial rather than viral in origin. Thankfully there was still no fever.

"I want to go home," Nikki repeated.

"We haven't talked with Dr. Pilsner," David reminded her. "But we will, sometime this morning. Be patient."