Sidney Sheldon - Nothing lasts forever

Mrs. Owens clutched Honey's hand. “I don't know how to thank you,” she sobbed. “You don't know what it has been like.”

“I can imagine,” Honey said. “You're going to be fine.”

The woman nodded, too choked up to speak.

The following day when Honey returned to see Mrs. Owens, the room was empty.

“Where is she?” Honey asked.

“Oh,” the nurse said, “she left this morning with her husband.”

Her name was on the PA system again. “Dr. Taft … Room 215. … Dr. Taft … Room 215.”

In the corridor Honey ran into Kat. “How's your day going?” Kat asked.

“You wouldn't believe it!” Honey told her.

Dr. Ritter was waiting for her in Room 215. In bed was an Indian man in his late twenties.

Dr. Ritter said, “This is your patient?”

“Yes.”

“It says here that he speaks no English. Right?”

“Yes.”

He showed her the chart. “And this is your writing? Vomiting, cramps, thirst, dehydration …”

“That's right,” Honey said.

“… absence of peripheral pulse …”

“Yes.”

“And what was your diagnosis?”

“Stomach flu.”

“Did you take a stool sample?”

“No. What for?”

“Because your patient has cholera, that's what for!” He was screaming. “We're going to have to close down the fucking hospital!”

“Cholera? Are you telling me this hospital has a patient with cholera?” Benjamin Wallace yelled.

“I'm afraid so.”

“Are you absolutely sure?”

“No question,” Dr. Ritter said. “His stool is swarming with vibrios. He has low arterial pH, with hypotension, tachycardia, and cyanosis.”

By law, all cases of cholera and other infectious diseases must immediately be reported to the state health board and to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

“We're going to have to report it, Ben.”

“They'll close us down!” Wallace stood up and began to pace. “We can't afford that. I'll be goddamned if I'm going to put every patient in this hospital under quarantine.” He stopped pacing for a moment. “Does the patient know what he has?”

“No. He doesn't speak English. He's from India.”

“Who has had contact with him?”

“Two nurses and Dr. Taft.”

“And Dr. Taft diagnosed it as stomach flu?”

“Right. I suppose you're going to dismiss her.”

“Well, no,” Wallace said. “Anyone can make a mistake. Let's not be hasty. Does the patient's chart read stomach flu?”

“Yes.”

Wallace made his decision. “Let's leave it that way. Here's what I want you to do. Start intravenous rehydration—use lactated Ringer's solution. Also give him tetracycline. If we can restore his blood volume and fluid immediately, he could be close to normal in a few hours.”

“We aren't going to report this?” Dr. Ritter asked.

Wallace looked him in the eye. “Report a case of stomach flu?”

“What about the nurses and Dr. Taft?”

“Give them tetracycline, too. What's the patient's name?”

“Pandit Jawah.”

“Put him in quarantine for forty-eight hours. He'll either be cured by then or dead.”

Honey was in a panic. She went to find Paige. “I need your help.” “What's the problem?”

Honey told her. “I wish you would talk to him. He doesn't speak English, and you speak Indian.” “Hindi.” “Whatever. Will you talk to him?”

“Of course.”

Ten minutes later, Paige was talking to Pandit Jawah.

“Aap ki tabyat kaisi hai?”

“Karab hai.”

“Aap jald acha ko hum kardenge.”

“Bhagwan aap ki soney ga.”

“Aap ka ilaj hum jalb shuroo kardenge.”

“Shukria.”

“Dost kiss Hay hain?”

Paige took Honey outside in the corridor.

“What did he say?”

“He said he feels terrible. I told him he's going to get well. He said to tell it to God. I told him we're going to start treatment immediately. He said he's grateful.”

“So am I.”

“What are friends for?”

Cholera is a disease that can cause death within twenty-four hours from dehydration, or that can be cured within a few hours.

Five hours after his treatment began, Pandit Jawah was nearly back to normal.

Paige stopped in to see Jimmy Ford.

His face lit up when he saw her. “Hi.” His voice was weak, but he had improved miraculously.

“How are you feeling?” Paige asked.

“Great. Did you hear about the doctor who said to his patient, ‘The best thing you can do is give up smoking, stop drinking, and cut down on your sex life?’ patient said, ‘I don't deserve the best. What's the second best?’”

And Paige knew Jimmy Ford was going to get well.

Ken Mallory was getting off duty and was on his way to meet Kat when he heard his name being paged. He hesitated, debating whether or not simply to slip out. His name was paged once more. Reluctantly, he picked up a telephone. “Dr. Mallory.”

“Doctor, could you come to ER Two, please? We have a patient here who—”

“Sorry,” Mallory said, “I just checked out. Find someone else.”

“There's no one else available who can handle this. It's a bleeding ulcer, and the patient's condition is critical. I'm afraid we're going to lose him if …”

Damn! “All right. I'll be right there.” I'll have to call Kat and tell her I'll be late.

The patient in the emergency room was a man in his sixties. He was semiconscious, ghost-pale, perspiring, and breathing hard, obviously in enormous pain. Mallory took one look at him and said, “Get him into an OR, stat!”

Fifteen minutes later, Mallory had the patient on an operating table. The anesthesiologist was monitoring his blood pressure. “It's dropping fast.”

“Pump some more blood into him.”

Ken Mallory began the operation, working against time. It took only a moment to cut through the skin, and after that, the layer of fat, the fascia, the muscle, and finally the smooth, transparent peritoneum, the lining of the abdomen. Blood was pouring into the stomach.

“Bovie!” Mallory said. “Get me four units of blood from the blood bank.” He began to cauterize the bleeding vessels.

The operation took four hours, and when it was over, Mallory was exhausted. He looked down at the patient and said, “He's going to live.”

One of the nurses gave Mallory a warm smile. “It's a good thing you were here, Dr. Mallory.”

He looked over at her. She was young and pretty and obviously open to an invitation. I'll get to you later, baby, Mallory thought. He turned to a junior resident, “Close him up and get him into the recovery room. I'll check on him in the morning.”

Mallory debated whether to telephone Kat, but it was midnight. He sent her two dozen roses.

When Mallory checked in at 6:00 A.M., he stopped by the recovery room to see his new patient.

“He's awake,” the nurse said.

Mallory walked over to the bed. “I'm Dr. Mallory. How do you feel?”

“When I think of the alternative, I feel fine,” the patient said weakly. “They tell me you saved my life. This was the damnedest thing. I was in the car on my way to a dinner party, and I got this sudden pain and I guess I blacked out. Fortunately, we were only a block away from the hospital, and they brought me to the emergency room here.”

“You were lucky. You lost a lot of blood.”

“They told me that in another ten minutes, I would have been gone. I want to thank you, doctor.”

Mallory shrugged. “I was just doing my job.”

The patient was studying him carefully. “I'm Alex Harrison.”

The name meant nothing to Mallory. “Glad to know you, Mr. Harrison.” He was checking Harrison's pulse.