by Barbara Ebel
Gloria monitored the situation and, satisfied, rolled her cart to the side. “Have a nice afternoon. I’ll be back later, but I hope they discharge you one of these days.”
“Ha,” May said. “I’m getting chemotherapy; I’m sick enough from that, but now I developed seizures from the metastatic lung cancer which invaded my brain. It’s in my bones too, and although they already chopped away at my lung, I still cough up blood once in a while. And besides that, I lost my dog and my boyfriend since I’ve been in here.” She wiped one side of her face because of the tear that had built up and rolled down her cheek.
Gloria was frozen where she stood. “I’m so sorry. I know the toll serious medical problems inflict on people’s lives. My mom had Parkinson’s disease and I took care of her until the end. Just hang in there and do the best you can. Can I bring you a book from the library?”
May wiped the other side of her face and looked up. “I’ll try not to be so morbid when you come back later. But a book is not a bad idea. I’ll stroll the hallway in a little while when my parents come back from lunch and visit the hospital’s library. Then they are sending me over for my second chemo treatment.”
“Good luck,” Gloria said and left. Next, she went down the east and west wing to dispense the rest of the scheduled patients’ drugs. She acquired two more narcotic pills and one anti-anxiety medication with sedative properties in the pocket of her pants and put vitamins and a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory in their place. She gloated at how easy it was and how the patients all seemed clueless.
CHAPTER 27
Poised to go home, the students gathered and waited for their chief to come back from a medical consult. He strutted in waving his newspaper and Annabel spoke up first.
“Dr. Schott, thanks for letting us do rounds earlier this afternoon.”
“I did it as a favor so the four of you can leave earlier than usual and use the extra time to study this weekend. I’m giving you Saturday morning off too. Dr. Burg, Dr. Watts, and I will do rounds tomorrow morning. The first medicine test is Tuesday, so be prepared.”
Annabel sneaked a peek at the other students, hoping no one would mention their get-together tomorrow night. They had agreed that the one night going out would be beneficial. Each of them could do solid studying and cramming on Sunday.
“Now get out of here before I start reading from this out loud.” He waved his paper at them with a hard frown. “I haven’t read one line of this yet.”
Annabel gulped, reached over into the corner, and pulled out her backpack. She grabbed her jacket from the hook and slid it on while Bob, Stuart, and Jordan did the same.
“Then we’ll see you on Sunday morning for rounds,” Annabel said.
Donn’s head was already buried behind the paper when he mumbled something they didn’t understand.
Annabel’s phone dinged as the students piled into the staircase and headed downstairs. Nancy’s message came through as she noted the time - 4:00 p.m.
An hour or two left for my drive. Stopped for gas and a milkshake.
“My sister’s almost here,” Annabel announced. “She’s going to grill you all about medical school tomorrow night. My opinion doesn’t usually count.”
“We can help with that,” Bob said. “Stuart can tell her that studying is required every breathing minute when you’re not on the wards.”
“Time put into studying depends on how smart you are to begin with,” Stuart said.
“You can tell her that too,” Annabel chuckled.
They weaved through the first floor lobby and split up for the revolving door at the exit.
“Even when it’s not beautiful outside,” Bob said, stepping off the curb, “I find it refreshing to leave the hospital. The air seems invigorating like we’ve been inside breathing stale air, disinfectant, and germs all day.”
“That’s why I like to take a walk in my neighborhood whenever I can,” Annabel said. “So I’ll meet the three of you at Pete’s tomorrow, up on my corner?”
“I’m in,” Bob said.
Stuart gave a thumbs up. “Me too.”
“I’ll be there,” Jordan said.
When Annabel arrived at her car, she texted her sister.
See you soon!
As she turned on the ignition, another text message came through, but it wasn’t Nancy.
Looking forward to tomorrow night at Stone’s. I’ll be wearing a brown leather jacket.
She looked at Ben Rogers profile picture and could picture him in a leather jacket. But she better not set her expectations too high, she thought, and texted him back.
Yes, I’ll meet you there and enjoy the day.
I hope I stay ‘free.’ Because of the delicate nature of my job, I could always be called in.
As long as he doesn’t get called tomorrow night, she thought. If they both found each other attractive, she would love to have a fun time in the sack with the Secret Service Agent.
She responded with two emojis in lieu of continuing the discussion and started for home.
-----
Kitchen staff pushed the bulky dinner cart along the medical hallway and a woman with a disposable bonnet read and checked off her master dietary patient list. She plucked trays from the shelves and delivered them into patients’ rooms.
Gloria was aware of the routine for the delivery of meals and she banked on the progression of the familiar schedule. It was her last, late visit of the day to dispense patients’ medications and she would make Mr. Hogan her last stop.
Against the wall and below old photographs of the hospital, she substituted the fictitious pills she’d bought from the pharmacy for every patient who was taking a narcotic, sedative, or hypnotic. Gloria went into each patient’s room either right before or after their dinner tray was placed before them. She made sure that patients accepted and gulped down the pills she provided.
When she only had Mr. Hogan’s room left to go into, the front of her pant pockets bulged with the drugs she had confiscated and hoarded for him. On the other hand, the two front pockets of her work smock were now almost half devoid of their over-the-counter pill stash.
Gloria keenly watched earlier as the woman with the bonnet scurried into Mr. Hogan’s room with his dinner selection. When the kitchen crew finished their job on the east and west wings, they checked back into everyone’s rooms and, luckily, took the empty or partially finished dinners from the first wing, which included Mr. Hogan’s.
Now Gloria leaned against the wall outside his doorway and flipped the pages in the black binder to his name and went to his medication list. She assumed no one paid her much mind in the hallway; she was not paying him a visit in sequence with the other patients. She had finished everyone else and had backtracked to him.
There was nothing to worry about, however, Gloria thought. Although people nowadays should be more alert and cognizant of other folks and events transpiring around them, it seemed like people just didn’t actively think these days. However, she concluded that giving out medications didn’t matter to anyone; no one gave her a second look.
She needed to pay attention with utmost focus on her pill switching. First, she went to the drawer and weeded out all the nine medications on Mr. Hogan’s medication list. She put the heart medicines, antihypertensives, and all the rest of them one by one on the top counter off in the left corner by a box of tissues and the plastic drinking cups. A couple holding their winter jackets and wearing long, sad faces passed her and gave her a nod. She waited until they turned into a room two doors down.
Gloria reached into her right pants pocket under her work smock. Her fingers circled all the pills, she brought them out, and put them discreetly in front of her. Most of the oxycodone and acetaminophen looked the same, so she put three into each of the two small pills cups she needed to use for him. She selected four other pills other than the narcotics. Each one a hypnotic, sleep aide, or sedative. In essence, it didn’t matter because everything she now had from her pockets had been care
fully selected.
She contemplated the two baby pill cups in front of her with five pills each. Mr. Hogan wouldn’t know the difference between nine or ten pills, but ten would make her feel more assured. This is overkill, she thought, because even six of these drugs would likely be a lethal dose for Mr. Hogan, particularly because of his severely compromised heart, as well as his lungs and circulation. Not much would be needed to put him to sleep and thereafter to make him stop breathing.
With the important preliminary task done, she slid Mr. Hogan’s real prescribed drugs from the counter corner into her hand and dropped them into the pocket of her trousers. She took a deep breath and committed herself to the last part of her task. Her patient, Mr. Hogan, had been desperate in his discussion with her that morning and the other day; she felt relieved that his congestive heart failure would not snuff out his last days like a snake making a slow kill. In the next hour or two, he would only become sleepy and then fade away to meet his maker. No pain, no suffering, no more needle sticks, no more heart tests, or false hopes from anyone about getting better.
Gloria gave a push against her cart and turned it into his room. Mr. Hogan’s dinner tray was gone. The reclining chair was positioned halfway back with the old man’s legs on the foot rest. He rested in a post-prandial slump and smacked his lips absent-mindedly as she positioned her cart.
“Mr. Hogan, time for your medicines and then no one will disturb you until they take your vital signs around ten o’clock. You can slumber off into a better sleep than the nap you’re taking right now.”
He wiggled a little in the chair and nodded.
“Would you like to wash these down with water or apple juice?”
“Water,” he said.
She poured water from a bottle into a plastic cup and he reached for it. Then she proceeded to hand him the first little pill cup. He barely glanced at her as he put one after the other of them into his mouth and chased them with the drink. As he took a break for a second, Gloria pulled the window drapes closed.
“Thanks,” he said and put another pill on his tongue.
She put the pill cup into the waste basket hanging off the side of her cart and picked up the second cup.
“Ugh,” he said. “Too many pills.”
But despite his small complaint, he continued downing the medications.
“This one is colorful,” he said. “They must have changed things around because I don’t remember seeing a blue one.”
“Nice to see some color in the mix,” Gloria said with a smile.
“Hey, I didn’t mean to complain so much this morning.”
“That’s all right. You’re entitled.” She put the second empty pill cup into her trash and, after his last sip of water, she took back the paper cup.
Gloria sighed with great consolation that her task was over. As she made it to the door, she wished she could witness the final serenity on Mr. Hogan’s face as her mercy killing propelled him to his last breath.
“Since I may not see you tomorrow,” Mr. Hogan added from his chair, “keep up the good work.”
She threw her arm up and gave him an acknowledging wave as she pushed her wares out the door. That was a strange thing for him to say, she thought. She wondered if he had a premonition that he would die overnight. She pulled the door to a closed position but didn’t snap it shut. Unless Mr. Hogan used his call button, there should be no reason why anyone would enter his room for a few hours.
-----
A smile crept over Manuel Hogan’s lips as he jostled his rear end tighter in the chair and let the post-prandial sinking spell overtake him again. The doctors had given him such hope that morning. He would go home one last time; that was all he wanted and all he could ask for. He eyed his ankles and he agreed with their assessment. The swelling was still there, but it had definitely subsided. Plus, he was sure about that because his ankles didn’t feel as tight as before with fluid.
By tomorrow night, he could be sitting by his front window with his favorite home brewed coffee, a newspaper, and the nightly news on in the background. He’d make sure the front porch light is on and perhaps if it is cold enough, there will be an icicle or two hanging down from the roof line.
After that, and before going to bed, he could pen the two letters he had wanted to write for some time. Notes to an old flame and a relative because he wanted to patch up previous differences. Or at least try. And the day after? He wanted to talk with his lawyer to make sure his will and last requests were in order and, before the end of that day, he would be sure to go to the movies to sit in the new stadium seating and marvel at the hugeness of the screen. Even if the flick was halfway enjoyable, he’d be happy. It’s the simple things in life, he thought, as he sleepily leaned forward and scratched at his ankle.
He readjusted the nasal cannula on his nose and sank his head back against the soft chair. He yawned and as each minute ticked by, Mr. Hogan’s conscious thoughts drifted away. His drowsiness succumbed to sleeping, which then acquiesced to a hard, deep sleep, and then culminated in his last breath.
-----
Gloria hung around for another hour, just wasting time. She dawdled behind the nurses’ station rearranging her cart like it was dirty and needed reorganizing. No call buzzed through to the nurses from Mr. Hogan’s room and no one flew down the hallway as if a patient was in trouble.
“Some people like their jobs,” Anna said, exiting from the storage room, “but what are you still doing here?”
Gloria startled. “After being slow as molasses, I’m leaving now.”
“Good night.” Anna gave her a look like she was crazy.
Gloria went to the locker room and slid Mr. Hogan’s real meds into the bottles she had for the multivitamins and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories in her purse. She thought to keep the substitute pills she bought in her lab smock. Maybe another patient would surface in the coming days who needed her help.
As she left the hospital, she drew in a big gasp of fresh, cold air. The adrenaline soared through her veins with the sheer ecstasy of what she did for Manuel Hogan. By now, he might have crossed over into the afterlife. She thought about watching the newspaper in the next few days for his obituary. With a broad smile and a clunking of her shoes along the asphalt, she decided to attend his funeral or visit his gravesite later. She hit her car remote button. Instead of one beep, she sounded it three times, like an uplifting trumpet signaling Mr. Hogan’s death.
Upon arriving home, Gloria removed the multivitamin and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory bottles from her purse, which had all of Mr. Hogan’s real hospital medicines in them, and placed them on her kitchen counter.
-----
On the late evening medical assistant rounds, a tech just like Gloria entered Mr. Hogan’s room. She found him in a restful pose in the recliner with his hands folded on his lap and the nasal cannula in his nose. But he was way too still; not even a hint of his chest rising with inspiration. She shook his arm but realized the gravity of his condition. She called the desk.
“I think Mr. Hogan is dead,” she said with alarm.
One nurse came running in with a med student she signaled from the desk as he was writing a note. The student felt Mr. Hogan’s carotid artery in his neck and shook his head.
“Get the crash cart,” he said, “let’s start a code and call for help.”
“I don’t think so,” the nurse said. “He’s a DNR, a do not resuscitate, by his own wishes.” She closed his eyelids with her finger. “Too bad. Dr. Schott had decided to discharge him in the morning.”
CHAPTER 28
With an internal medicine paperback in her hands, Annabel lounged in sweatpants and a hoodie against a pillow and a sham on her bed. She blocked out all other thoughts except for what she was studying; her sister would be showing up soon, and with a busy Saturday night, she needed to use all available time to study and review. Learning to focus immediately and intently on certain subject matter, she realized, would be a skill she could use for y
ears to come.
A rap came at her door. She padded over in slipper socks and her sister knocked with the familiar seven raps they used at home. When she opened the door, Nancy stood there with her paraphernalia: a rolling suitcase with a wrapped-up sleeping bag perched on top and a small cooler and bag on the other side. Nancy’s hazel eyes latched onto her and she broke out in a smile. Her light brown hair was clipped on one side with a herringbone clip.
“How’d you manage carrying all of that?” Annabel asked.
“Two trips from the car. Easy enough since I parked practically out front.”
“I should be so lucky. Looks like you’re moving in.”
“You told me to bring a sleeping bag.”
“That I did.” Annabel grabbed the cooler and purse and let Nancy pull the suitcase.
“This okay?” Nancy asked while spreading the sleeping bag down on the bedroom floor.
Annabel nodded and her sister proceeded to position the suitcase next to it and unzip. From the right side, packed tightly between clothes, Nancy withdrew a white container four inches high and handed it to her.
Annabel took it in both hands. A white strip was taped horizontally across the front with only one word. Dakota. She held it to her heart for a few moments and then patted the top. “Thank Dad for me.”
“I will. He said to tell you that he and Mom are getting another dog in a few months. Any of us are welcome to go to the breeders with them and pick out a Chesapeake puppy.”
“You and I will be home less and less. I think the dog they select should be entirely their decision.”
“It may come down to that anyway, Annabel. You can’t race down there anytime you want.”
“So true. I wish I could see them more often. Even Aunt Mary and Uncle Casey. You should enjoy all that time you spend with them right now.”
“I’ve probably overstayed living there while going to college and I’m still not sure what I’m going to do in the spring when I graduate.”
