Robin Cook: Host

After I assured him I would be ready when he got to the medical center, and we disconnected, I stared out the window, feeling particularly lonely and worrying that Bob’s state of mind was going to cause problems for us over the long haul. We had to use Mason-Dixon Medical Center, as it was the only area hospital in our insurance network. The problem is, when Bob gets started on something like this, involving a major lawsuit, he is like a dog with a bone. I can’t imagine why Middleton Healthcare Hospitals would see more blood-protein abnormalities than other hospitals. It doesn’t make sense. Does Bob think they are drumming up business? I can’t imagine that could be true! But his aggressiveness about the hospital gives me a bad feeling, especially since the doctors and nurses really did help me when I was in need on Friday night. What if the boys need hospitalization in the near future? Could Bob jeopardize that? What I do know, and know better than anybody else, is when Bob says he is going to sue somebody, it happens. I suppose I can hope that once I am home I can calm him down, and we all get back to normal.

Monday, April 6, 6:30 A.M.

Spring in Charleston, South Carolina, is a resplendent affair, and by the beginning of April, it is always well under way. The azaleas, camellias, hyacinths, early-blooming magnolias, and forsythias, as if competing for attention, all contribute to the riot of color and fragrance. And on this particular day, as the sun prepared to rise, there was the promise that it would be glorious for almost everyone in this scenic, historic town. Everyone, that is, except for Carl Vandermeer, a successful young lawyer who had grown up in nearby West Ashley.

Most mornings, regardless of the time of the year but particularly in the springtime, Carl would be part of a sizable group of joggers who ran along the Battery, which was located at the southern tip of Charleston’s peninsula. The Battery fronted that portion of the expansive Charleston Harbor formed by the confluence of the Cooper and the Ashley Rivers. Lined with restored nineteenth-century mansions and boasting a public garden, the Battery was one of the city’s most attractive and popular locales.

Like most of his fellow runners, Carl lived in the immediate and charming residential neighborhood known to the locals as SOB, the acronym for “South of Broad.” Broad Street was a thoroughfare that ran east to west across the Charleston peninsula between the two rivers.

The reason Carl was not jogging this beautiful spring morning was the same reason he had not been jogging for the previous month. He had torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during the final basketball game of the past season. He and a half dozen other athletically inclined lawyers had formed a team to play in a city league.

Carl had always been into sports through high school and Duke University, where he played Division 1 lacrosse with considerable renown. Having made it a point to keep himself in shape even during law school, he thought of himself as generally immune to injury, especially since he was only twenty-nine years old. Throughout his athletic career he had never suffered more than a couple of sprained ankles.

So the knee injury had come as an unwelcome surprise. One minute he was perfectly fine, having played the entire first half of the game and scoring eighteen points in the process. With the ball in his possession, he had faked the fellow guarding him to the left and then went to the right, to drive to the basket. He never made it. The next thing he knew, he was sprawled on the floor, unsure of what had happened. Embarrassed, he got right to his feet. There was some discomfort in his right knee, but it wasn’t bad. He took a few steps to walk it out and immediately collapsed a second time. That was when he knew it was serious.

A visit to Dr. Gordon Weaver, an orthopedic surgeon, had confirmed the diagnosis to be a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Even Carl, a complete medical novice by choice, had been able to see it on the MRI. The bad news was that he’d have to have surgery if he wanted to play any kind of sports. Dr. Weaver said the best operation involved diverting a portion of his own patellar tendon up through his joint. The only good news was that his health plan would cover the whole deal, including the rehab. His bosses at the law firm where he worked were not thrilled about the necessary downtime, but missing work was not what bothered Carl. What bothered Carl was that he had a particularly strong distaste for anything having to do with medicine and needles. He had been known to pass out from merely having blood drawn, and he didn’t even like the smell of rubbing alcohol because of its associations. He had never been hospitalized, but he had visited friends who had been, and the experience had freaked him out, so going into the hospital that morning for surgery was going to be a challenge, to say the very least.

The irony of his embarrassing and secret medical phobia was that his steady girlfriend for the last two years, Lynn Peirce, was a fourth-year medical student. She often made him light-headed with her stories of her daily experiences at the Mason-Dixon Medical Center, where Carl was scheduled to have his surgery in a few hours. She had been the one who had recommended Dr. Weaver and had explained in agonizing detail exactly how Carl’s knee was going to be repaired.

It also had been at Lynn’s insistence that he request that his operation be Dr. Weaver’s first case on a Monday morning. The rationale, she explained, was that everyone would be fresh and on the ball, meaning there would be less chance for mistakes or scheduling problems. Carl knew that Lynn meant well with all this, but her comments only made him even more nervous.

Lynn had offered to spend the night as she had on Saturday night to make sure Carl followed his pre-op orders and got to the hospital on time, but Carl had begged off. He was afraid she might end up innocently saying something that would make him even more worried than he already was. But he didn’t tell her that. He said he thought he’d sleep better alone and reassured her that he would follow his pre-op instructions to the letter. She had accepted gracefully and said that she’d come visit him in his hospital room as soon as he came back from the PACU, or post-anesthesia care unit.

Carl had never mentioned his medical phobia to Lynn for fear that she, at a minimum, would laugh at him. Nor did he let on how anxious he felt about his upcoming surgery. To preserve his ego, there were some things better left unsaid.

Carl let the alarm ring unabated for a time out of fear of falling back asleep. He’d slept poorly and had had trouble getting to sleep the night before. His instructions from Dr. Weaver’s nurse were to have nothing by mouth after midnight except water and to take a good, hot shower with antimicrobial soap when he got up with particular attention paid to his right leg. He was supposed to arrive at the hospital no later than seven, which was going to be a rush, since it was already six-thirty. He wanted it to be a rush, thinking he’d have less chance to think, but here he was, not even out of bed and already anxious.

As if sensing his distress, Pep, his nimble eight-year-old Burmese cat, awoke at the foot of the bed and came up to rub her wet nose against Carl’s stubbled chin.

“Thank you, girl,” Carl said, tossing back the covers and making a beeline to the bathroom. Pep tagged along as always. Carl had saved the cat at the end of his undergraduate senior year at Duke when one of his classmates was going to abandon her at the pound after graduation in the hope that it would be adopted. Carl couldn’t abide by the plan, considering it a possible death sentence. He took the cat home for the summer, became hopelessly enamored with her, and ended up taking her along to law school. Frank Giordano, a close friend and fellow basketball-playing lawyer, who would be arriving shortly to drive Carl to the hospital, had volunteered to take care of the cat by coming to Carl’s house and making sure it had food and water until Carl’s homecoming in three days. Everything was in order, or so Carl thought.