Robin Cook: Host

Monday, March 30, 9:30 A.M.

Once again I failed to write in the journal, as I had planned after Bob’s visit. My excuse was feeling spaced out. That’s the best way I can describe it. I had written yesterday at the very end of the entry that I was having trouble concentrating. It got worse. I don’t even remember all that Bob and I talked about when he was here, although I do remember that he, too, got upset about all my emerging symptoms, demanding to talk to the doctors who had come to examine me. Whether he did or not, I don’t know. And I don’t remember much else that he said, although I do remember that he was going to call Dr. Curtis Fletcher, our old family doctor, and get him involved.

I vaguely remember getting agitated after Bob left, worrying that I was getting worse and not better. That got Dr. Webster back, and she prescribed a sedative to calm me down, which certainly did. The next thing I remembered was again waking up in the middle of the night. This time it was with someone doing something to my belly that felt like a needle prick. Maybe it was the same person who had adjusted my IV the night before. I’m not sure. When I awoke this morning, I wondered if it had been a dream until I found a slightly tender area on my abdomen. Are some sedatives given there? I will try to remember to ask. My fever is down slightly, although still above normal. More importantly, I don’t feel so spaced out, and the achiness is much improved with ibuprofen. Maybe they will let me go home. I hope so. My dislike and fear of hospitals have not improved. They’ve gotten worse.

10:35 A.M.

I am back writing! I am very upset. I am not going home. Dr. Chris Hobart just returned with bad news. He said he had ordered an albumin test yesterday, which turned out to show that the albumin was okay but that I had another blood protein that was way up! He said I was developing a monoclonal gammopathy, whatever the hell that is. I have yet to look it up on the Internet. I hate it when doctors talk as if they don’t want you to understand. I know this sounds paranoid, but I think doctors do it on purpose. To his credit, he did say that the elevated protein was probably not a problem, but he wanted me to have another consult with a blood specialist, meaning I wasn’t going to be discharged.

3:15 P.M.

The blood specialist just left, promising to return in the morning. If her visit was supposed to calm me down, it didn’t work. My worst fears about hospitals are coming to pass in spades. This new doctor is a blood cancer doctor! An oncologist! I’m now terrified I’m going to come down with something like leukemia. The doctor’s name is Siri Erikson, which sounds Scandinavian, and she looks it. All I can say is that I want to go home! Unfortunately I still have a high fever, and Dr. Erikson said it would be better for me to stay another few days to see if they can find out what is causing my temperature to go up, or, at the very least, let it come back to normal.

But I’m really anxious. Everything that is happening is convincing me that hospitals are not safe places to be unless you really need them, like I suppose I did Friday night. It seems that the longer I stay here, the more problems I get. I will talk to Bob about all this when he comes to visit after work. On the plus side, my GI system is getting back to normal. My diet has been upped to normal foods, which I am tolerating fine. I just want to get out of here and get home with Bob and the boys.

4:45 P.M.

Bob expects to be here around six P.M. In the meantime I put in a call to Dr. Fletcher, our old family doctor, which Bob had forgotten to do after he said he would. I remembered seeing the GP for a physical about two months ago, when Bob and I were toying with the idea of getting some life insurance. The examination had included some basic blood work, and I wondered if it included blood proteins. At the time I had been told everything had been normal. When Dr. Fletcher called me back to commiserate about my bout of food poisoning, he told me that the blood work he had done did include a blood protein screen. He confirmed it had been normal. When I told him about possibly having a protein problem now, he was surprised, although he said such a problem can start at any time but usually only involving people much older than I. His advice was that the test should be repeated, and I told him that it had already been ordered. As far as getting him involved in my in-hospital care, he said he couldn’t do it. He said that he did not have privileges at the Mason-Dixon but would be happy to talk to any of the doctors taking care of me if they wanted. I thanked him and told him that I would suggest it. Needless to say, I’m disappointed with what’s going on, and I have decided, no matter what, I will check myself out of the hospital tomorrow as long as Bob is okay with the plan.

7:05 P.M.

Bob just left. Unfortunately I’ve gotten him really upset. After telling him what I had learned from Dr. Fletcher, that my blood proteins were normal a few months ago, he wanted to sign me out of the hospital immediately. Strangely enough, his emotional response made me hesitant about leaving, especially since I had been told that it would entail signing out against medical advice. Finally I was able to convince Bob that we should wait at least until the morning, when I would be seeing Dr. Erikson again. After all, blood problems were her specialty, and I wanted to be reassured I didn’t have something really bad, like cancer.

Now, lying here at the mercy of this place and listening to the sounds drifting in from the corridor, I wonder if I should have let Bob check me out no matter what I needed to sign. To make matters worse, I have just noticed what might be a new symptom: my belly feels slightly tender. Or at least I think it does when I press deeply. But maybe it always feels that way. I don’t actually know. Maybe I’m being overly melodramatic and even a little paranoid. I’m going to ask for my sleeping pill and try to forget where I am.

Tuesday, March 31, 9:50 A.M.

I just hung up with Bob. I’m afraid I have ignited a firestorm. I told him that Dr. Erikson had come by with the news that the protein abnormality, or gammopathy, in my blood was real, and the level was even slightly higher than in the previous test. When she saw how upset I became, she tried to backtrack and calm me down. But her reassurances fell on deaf ears. Not after reading what I had on the Internet about blood protein abnormalities. As soon as she left, I called Bob and, bursting into tears, I told him what had happened. He told me to start packing my things because he was coming in to sign me out. And that was not all: he said he is going to sue the bejesus out of Middleton Healthcare, the corporate owners of the Mason-Dixon Medical Center and thirty-one other hospitals. When I asked why, he told me he’d pulled an “all-nighter” doing research using his inside channels (he actually pays informants at area hospitals to find out about difficult cases so he can contact the patients directly). He said he had learned something disturbing concerning Middleton Healthcare hospitals that he needs to follow up further and will explain when I get home. Meanwhile, he wants me out of the Mason-Dixon Medical Center pronto (his word). He said that the Middleton Healthcare hospitals had excellent stats in relation to hospital-based infections, but when it comes to a discharge diagnosis of a new, unsuspected blood-protein abnormality, like I supposedly have, their numbers are off the charts. He believes that he may have stumbled onto a class-action lawsuit that could make his career. He said that his intuition was telling him that Middleton was doing something strange, meaning some sort of corporate wrongdoing, and he intended to find out what it was and do something about it. We talked for quite a while, with him doing most of the talking. I have to admit I progressively felt a bit betrayed. His main interest had morphed from my problems and mind-set to a lawsuit supposedly in the public interest.