Robin Cook - Godplayer

Cassi always experienced a degree of apprehension when she dipped the test tape into her urine. There was always the chance that the color of the tape would change and indicate she was losing sugar. Not that a little sugar in her urine was all that big a deal, especially if it occurred only once in a while. It was more an emotional thing; if she was spilling sugar, then she was not in control. It was the psychological aspect that was disturbing.

The light in the toilet was poor, forcing Cassi to unlatch the stall door in order to get a good look at the tape. It had not changed its color. Having gotten so little sleep the night before and having cheated that afternoon with a fruit yogurt snack, she wouldn’t have been too surprised to see a little sugar. Cassi was pleased that the amount of insulin she was giving herself and her diet were in balance. Her internist, Dr. Malcolm McInery, talked occasionally of switching her to a constant insulin-infusion device, but Cassi had demurred. She was reluctant to alter a system that seemed to be working. She did not mind giving herself two injections a day, one before breakfast and one before dinner. It had become so routine as to be effortless.

Closing her right eye, Cassi looked at the test tape. There was just a vague sensation of light as if she were looking through a wall of ground glass. She wished that she didn’t have the problem with her eye because the idea of blindness terrified her more, in some ways, than the idea of death. The possibility of death she could deny, just like everyone else. But denying the possibility of blindness was difficult with the condition of her left eye there to remind her each and every day. The problem had happened suddenly. She’d been told that a blood vessel had broken, causing blood to enter into the vitreous cavity.

As she washed her hands, Cassi examined herself in the mirror. The single overhead light was kind, she decided, giving her skin more color than she knew it possessed. She looked at her nose. It was too small for her face. And her eyes: they curved unnaturally upwards at the outer corners as if she had her hair pulled back too tightly. Cassi tried to look at herself without concentrating on any single feature. Was she really as attractive as people said? She’d never felt pretty. She had always thought that diabetes was indelibly stamped in bold letters across her forehead. She was convinced that her disease was a major flaw that everyone could see.

It hadn’t always been that way. In high school Cassi had tried to reduce it to a small aspect of her life. Something she could compartmentalize. And although she was conscientious about her medicine and diet, she did not want to dwell on it.

Yet this approach made her parents, mostly her mother, understandably concerned. They felt that the only way she would be able to maintain the discipline the disease required was to make it her major focus. At least that was the way Mrs. Cassidy had dealt with the problem.

The conflict came to a head at the time of the senior prom.

Cassi came home from school beside herself with excitement and anticipation. The prom was to be held in a fashionable local country club, followed by a breakfast back at the school. Then the entire class was to head down to the New Jersey shore for the rest of the weekend.

Unexpectedly Cassi had been asked to the prom by Tim Bartholomew, one of the more popular boys in the school. He’d talked with Cassi on a number of occasions following a physics class they shared. But he’d never asked Cassi out, so the invitation came as a total surprise. The thrill of going out with a desirable boy to the biggest social event of the year was almost too much for Cassi to bear.

Cassi’s father was the first to hear the good news. As a rather dry professor of geology at Columbia University, he didn’t share the same enthusiasm as Cassi but was pleased she was happy.

Cassi’s mother was less enthusiastic. Coming in from the kitchen, she told Cassi that she could go to the prom but had to come home instead of going to the breakfast.

“They don’t cook for diabetics at such affairs,” said Mrs. Cassidy, “and as far as going to the shore for the weekend, that is completely out of the question.”

Not expecting this negative response, Cassi was ill-prepared to deal with it. She protested through tears that she’d demonstrated adequate responsibility toward her medicine and diet and that she should be allowed to go.

Mrs. Cassidy was adamant, telling Cassi that she was only thinking of her welfare. Then she said that Cassi had to accept the fact that she was not normal.

Cassi screamed that she was normal, having emotionally struggled with that very issue for her entire adolescence.

Mrs. Cassidy grasped Cassi’s shoulders and told her daughter that she had a chronic, life-long disease and that the sooner she accepted the fact the better off she’d be.

Cassandra flew to her room, locking her door. She refused to talk with anyone until the next day. When she did, she informed her mother that she’d called Tim and told him that she couldn’t go to the prom because she was ill. She told her mother that Tim had been surprised because he’d not known she had diabetes.

Staring at her reflection in the hospital mirror, Cassi brought herself back to the present. She wondered to what degree she had overcome her disease intellectually. Oh, she knew a lot about it now and could quote all sorts of facts and figures. But had that knowledge been worth the sacrifices? She didn’t know the answer to that question and probably never would. Her eyes strayed up to her hair, which was a mess.

After taking out her combs and hairpins, Cassi gave her head a shake. Her fine hair tumbled down around her face in a disorganized mop. With practiced hands she carefully put it back up, and when she emerged from the bathroom she felt refreshed.

The few things she’d brought with her for the overnight in the hospital fitted easily into her canvas shoulder bag despite the fact that it already contained a large folder of reprinted medical articles. She’d had the bag since college, and although it was soiled and threadbare in places, it was an old friend. It had a large red heart on one side. Cassi had been given a briefcase on graduation from medical school, but she preferred the canvas bag. The briefcase seemed too pretentious. Besides, she could get more into the bag.

Cassi checked her watch. It was five-thirty, which was just about perfect timing. She knew that Thomas would be heading down the stretch, seeing his last office patients. As Cassi hefted her things, she remarked to herself that the regular schedule was another benefit of psychiatry. As a medical intern or pathology resident, she was never finished much before six-thirty or seven, and at times worked to eight or eight-thirty. On psychiatry she could count on being free after the four to five afternoon team meeting, provided she wasn’t on call.

Stepping into the corridor, Cassi was initially surprised to find it empty. Then she remembered that it was dinner-time for the patients, and as she passed the common room, she could see most of the patients eating from their trays in front of their TV sets. Cassi ducked into her cubbyhole office and collected the charts she’d been extracting. She only had four patients, including Colonel Bentworth, and she’d spent a portion of the afternoon carefully going over their charts and making three-by-five index cards on each case.

With the canvas bag over her shoulder and the charts in her arms, Cassi went down to the nurses’ station. Joel Hartman, who was on call that night, was sitting in the station, talking to the two nurses. Cassi deposited the charts in their respective slots and said good night. Joel told her to have a good weekend and to relax because he’d have her patients cured by Monday. He said he knew just how to handle Bentworth because he had been in ROTC in college.