Godplayer

by Robin Cook

  Joan allowed herself to be led down the main corridor to the heavy fire door which led into the hospital proper. There were no locked doors on Clarkson Two. It was an “open” ward. Many of the patients were not allowed to leave the floor, but compliance was up to them. They knew if they ignored the rules they risked being sent to the State Hospital. There the environment was significantly different and much less pleasant.

  As the door closed behind her, Cassi felt a sense of relief. In sharp contrast to the psychiatry ward, here in the main hospital building it was easy to distinguish the doctors and nurses from the patients. The doctors wore either suit jackets or their white coats; the nurses, their white uniforms; and the patients, their hospital johnnies. Back in Clarkson Two everyone wore street clothes.

  As Cassi and Joan threaded their way toward the central elevators, Joan asked, “What was it like being a resident in pathology? Did you like it?”

  “I loved it,” said Cassi.

  “I hope you don’t take this as an insult,” laughed Joan. “But you don’t look like any pathologist I know.”

  “It’s the story of my life,” said Cassi. “First nobody would believe I was a medical student, then they said I looked too young to be a doctor, and last night Colonel Bentworth was kind enough to tell me I didn’t look like a psychiatrist. What do you think I look like?”

  Joan didn’t answer. The truth was Cassi looked more like a dancer or a model than a doctor.

  They joined the crowd of people in front of the bank of elevators serving Scherington, the main hospital building. There were only six elevators, which turned out to be an architectural blunder. Sometimes you could wait ten minutes for a car and then have to stop at every floor.

  “What made you switch residencies?” asked Joan. As soon as the question left her lips, she regretted it. “You don’t have to answer that. I don’t mean to pry. I guess it’s the psychiatrist in me.”

  “It’s quite all right,” said Cassi equably. “And actually it’s quite simple. I have juvenile diabetes. In choosing my medical specialty, I’ve had to keep that reality in mind. I’ve tried to ignore it, but it is a definite handicap.”

  Joan’s embarrassment was increased by Cassi’s candor. Yet as uncomfortable as Joan felt, she thought it would be worse not to respond to Cassi’s honesty. “I would have thought under the circumstances pathology would have been a good choice.”

  “I thought so too, at first,” said Cassi. “But unfortunately during the past year I began to have trouble with my eyes. In fact, at the moment I can only distinguish light and dark with my left eye. I’m sure you know all about diabetic retinopathy. I’m not a defeatist but if worse comes to worst, I could practice psychiatry even if I became blind. Not so with pathology. Come on, let’s get that first elevator.”

  Cassi and Joan were swept into the car. The door closed, and they started up.

  Joan had not felt so uncomfortable in years, but she felt she had to respond. “How long have you had diabetes?” she asked.

  The simple question hurled Cassi back in time. Back to when she was eight and her life began to change. Up to that point, Cassi had always liked school. She was an eager, enthusiastic child who seemed to look forward to new experiences. But in the middle of the third grade it all changed. In the past she’d always been ready for school early; now she had to be pushed and cajoled by her mother. Her concentration dwindled and notes to that effect began to arrive from her teacher. One of the central issues, something that no one recognized, not even Cassi herself, was that Cassi had to use the girls’ room more and more frequently. After a time the teacher, Miss Rossi, began on occasion to refuse Cassi’s requests, suspecting that she was using trips to the toilet to avoid her work. When this happened, Cassi experienced the awful fear that she would lose control of her bladder. In her mind’s eye she could picture what it would look like if she had “an accident,” and her urine dripped down from her seat and puddled under her desk. The fear brought on anger and the anger, ostracism. The kids began to make fun of Cassi.

  At home an episode of bedwetting surprised and shocked both Cassandra and her mother. Mrs. Cassidy demanded an explanation, but Cassandra had none and was, in fact, equally appalled. When Mr. Cassidy suggested they consult the family doctor, Mrs. Cassidy was too mortified to do so, convinced as she was that the whole affair was a behavioral disorder.

  Various punishments had no effect. If anything they exacerbated the problem. Cassi began to throw temper tantrums, lost her few remaining friends, and spent most of her time in her room. Mrs. Cassidy reluctantly began to think about the need for a child psychologist.

  Things came to a head in the early spring. Cassi could remember the day vividly. Only a half hour after a recess, she began to experience a combination of mounting bladder pressure and thirst. Anticipating Miss Rossi’s response so close to recess, Cassi tried vainly to wait for class to end. She squirmed in her seat and clutched her hands into tight fists. Her mouth became so dry she could barely swallow, and despite all her efforts, she felt the release of a small amount of urine.

  In terror she walked pigeon-toed up to Miss Rossi and asked to be excused. Miss Rossi, without a glance, told her to take her seat. Cassi turned and walked deliberately to the door. Miss Rossi heard it open and looked up.

  Cassi fled to the he girls’ room with Miss Rossi at her heels. She had her panties down and her dress bunched in her arms before Miss Rossi caught up to her. With relief, the little girl sank onto the toilet. Miss Rossi stood her ground, putting her hands on her hips, and waited with an expression that said: “You’d better produce or else…”

  Cassi produced. She began to urinate and continued for what seemed like an incredible duration of time. Miss Rossi’s angry expression mellowed. “Why didn’t you go during recess?” she demanded. “I did,” said Cassi plaintively.

  “I don’t believe you,” said Miss Rossi. “I just don’t believe you, and this afternoon after school, we are going to march down to Mr. Jankowski’s office.”

  Back in the classroom, Miss Rossi made Cassi sit by herself. She could still remember the dizziness that came over her. First she couldn’t see the blackboard. Then she felt strange all over and thought she was going to vomit. But she didn’t. Instead she passed out. The next thing Cassi knew was that she was in the hospital. Her mother was bending over her. She told Cassi she had diabetes.

  Cassi turned to Joan, bringing her mind back to the present.

  “I was hospitalized when I was nine,” said Cassi hurriedly, hoping Joan hadn’t noticed the fact that she had been daydreaming. “The diagnosis was made then.”

  “That must have been a difficult time for you,” said Joan.

  “It wasn’t so bad,” said Cassi. “In some respects it was a relief to know that the symptoms I had been having had a physical basis. And once the doctors stabilized my insulin requirements, I felt much better. By the time I reached my teens I even got used to giving myself the injections twice a day. Ah, here we are.” Cassi motioned them off the elevator.

  “I’m impressed,” said Joan with sincerity. “I doubt if I’d have been able to handle my medical training if I had had diabetes.”

  “I’m certain you would have,” said Cassi casually. “We’re all more adaptable than we give ourselves credit for.”

  Joan wasn’t sure she agreed, but she let it go. “What about your husband? Having known a few surgeons in my life, I hope he’s understanding and supportive.”

  “Oh, he is,” said Cassi, but she answered too quickly for Joan’s analytical mind.

  Pathology was its own world, completely separate from the rest of the hospital. As a psychiatric resident, Joan hadn’t visited the floor in the two years she’d been at Boston Memorial. She had prepared herself for the dark, nineteenth-century appearance of the department of pathology in her medical school, complete with dingy glass-fronted cabinets filled with round specimen jars containing bits of horror in yellowing Formalin. Instead, she found herself
in a white, futuristic world composed of tile, Formica, stainless steel, and glass. There were no specimens and no clutter and no strangely repulsive smells. At the entrance there were a number of secretaries with earphones typing onto word-processing screens. To the left were offices, and down the center was a long white Formica table supporting double-headed microscopes.

  Cassi led Joan into the first office where an impeccably dressed young man leaped up from his desk and greeted Cassi with a big, unprofessional hug. Then the man thrust Cassi away so he could look at her.

  “God, you look good,” he said. “But wait. You haven’t colored your hair, have you?”

  “I knew you’d notice,” laughed Cassi. “No one else has.”

  “Of course I’d notice. And this is a new blouse. Lord and Taylor?”

  “No, Saks.”

  “It’s wonderful.” He fingered the material. “It’s all cotton. Very nice.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” said Cassi, remembering Joan and introducing her. “Joan Widiker, Robert Seibert, second-year pathology resident.”

  Joan took Robert’s outstretched hand. She liked his engaging, forthright smile. His eyes twinkled, and Joan had the feeling she’d been instantly inspected.

  “Robert and I went to the same medical school,” explained Cassi as Robert put his arm around her again. “And then by chance we both ended up here at the Boston Memorial for first-year pathology.”

  “You two look like you could be brother and sister,” said Joan.

  “People have said that,” said Robert, obviously pleased. “We had an immediate affinity for each other for a lot of reasons including the fact that we both had serious childhood diseases. Cassi had diabetes, and I had rheumatic fever.”

  “And we’re both terrified of surgery,” said Cassi, causing herself and Robert to burst out laughing.

  Joan assumed it was some kind of private joke.

  “Actually, it’s not so funny,” said Cassi. “Instead of mutually supporting each other, we’ve ended up making each other more scared. Robert is supposed to have his wisdom teeth removed, and I’m supposed to have the hemorrhage in my left eye cleared.”

  “I’m going to have mine taken care of soon,” said Robert defiantly. “Now that I’ve got you out of my hair.”

  “I’ll believe that when it happens,” laughed Cassi.

  “You’ll see,” said Robert. “But meanwhile let’s get down to business. I’ve saved the autopsy until you got here. But first I promised to call the medical resident who tried to resuscitate the patient.”

  Robert stepped back to his desk and picked up his phone.

  “Autopsy!” Joan whispered, alarmed. “I didn’t bargain on an autopsy. I’m not sure I’m up for that.”

  “It might be worthwhile,” said Cassi innocently, as if watching an autopsy was something people did for amusement. “During my time as a pathology resident, Robert and I became interested in a series of cases that we’ve labeled SSD, for sudden surgical death. What we found was a group of cardiac surgery patients who had died less than a week after their operations even though most had been doing well and who, on autopsy, had no anatomical cause of death. A few might be understandable, but counting what turned up in the records for the last ten years, we found seventeen. The case Robert is going to autopsy now could make eighteen.”

  Robert returned from the phone saying Jerry Donovan would be right down and offered his guests coffee. Before they had a chance to drink it, Jerry arrived on the run. The first thing he did was give Cassi a hug. Joan was impressed. Cassi seemed to be on friendly terms with everyone. Then he slapped Robert on the shoulder and said, “Hey, man, thanks for the call.”

  Robert winced at the impact of the blow and forced a smile.

  To Joan, Jerry was dressed like the usual house officer. His white jacket, rumpled and soiled, hung askew due to the weight of an overstuffed black notebook in the right pocket. His pants were spotted with a line of bloodstains across the thighs. Next to Robert, Jerry looked like a floor sweeper in a meat-packing house.

  “Jerry went to the same medical school as Robert and I,” explained Cassi. “Only he was an upper classman.”

  “A distinction that is still painfully obvious,” kidded Jerry.

  “Let’s go,” said Robert. “I’ve had one of the autopsy rooms on hold long enough.”

  Robert left first, followed by Joan. Jerry stepped aside for Cassi, then caught up to her.

  “You’ll never guess who I had the pleasure of watching do his thing last night,” said Jerry as they skirted the microscope table.

  “I wouldn’t even try,” said Cassi, expecting some off-color humor.

  “Your husband! Dr. Thomas Kingsley.”

  “Really?” said Cassi. “What was a medicine man like you doing in the OR?”

  “I wasn’t,” said Jerry. “I was on the surgical floor trying to resuscitate the patient we’re going to autopsy. Your husband responded to the code. I was impressed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such decisiveness. He ripped this guy’s chest open and gave open-heart massage right on the bed. It blew my mind. Tell me, is your husband that impressive at home?”

  Cassi shot Jerry a harsh glance. If that comment had come from anybody but Jerry, she probably would have snapped back. But she expected off-color humor and there it was. So why make an issue? She decided to let it drop.

  Ignoring Cassi’s less-than-positive reaction, Jerry continued: “The thing that impressed me was not the actual cutting open of the guy’s chest but rather the decision to do it in the first place. It’s so goddamn irreversible. It’s a decision I don’t know how anybody could make. I agonize over whether or not to start a patient on antibiotics.”

  “Surgeons get used to that sort of thing,” said Cassi. “That kind of decision making becomes a tonic. In a sense they enjoy it.”

  “Enjoy it?” echoed Jerry with disbelief. “That’s pretty hard to believe, but I suppose they must; otherwise we wouldn’t have any surgeons. Maybe the biggest difference between an internist and a surgeon is the ability to make irreversible decisions.”

  Entering the autopsy room, Robert donned a black rubber apron and rubber gloves. The others grouped around the pale corpse whose chest still gaped open. The edges of the wound had darkened and dried. Except for an endotracheal tube that stuck rudely out of the mouth, the patient’s face looked serene. The eyes were thankfully closed.

  “Ten to one it was a pulmonary embolism,” said Jerry confidently.

  “I’ll put a dollar on that,” said Robert, positioning a microphone which hung from the ceiling at a convenient height. It was operated by a foot pedal. “You told me yourself the patient initially had been very cyanotic. I don’t think we’re going to find an embolism. In fact, if my hunch is correct, we’re not going to find anything.”

  As Robert began his examination, he started dictating into the mike. “This is a well-developed, well-nourished Caucasian male weighing approximately one hundred sixty-five pounds and measuring seventy inches in length who appears to be of the stated age of forty-two…”

  As Robert went on to describe the other visible evidence of Bruce Wilkinson’s surgery, Joan stared at Cassi, who was placidly sipping her coffee. Joan looked down at her own cup. The idea of drinking it made her stomach turn.

  “Have all these SSD cases been the same?” asked Joan, trying not to look at the table where Robert was arranging scalpels, scissors, and bone clippers in preparation of opening and eviscerating the corpse.

  Cassi shook her head. “No. Some have been cyanotic like this case, some seemed to have died from cardiac arrest, some from respiratory failure, and some from convulsions.”

  Robert began the usual Y-shaped autopsy incision, starting high on the shoulder and connecting with the open-chest incision. Joan could hear the blade scrape across the underlying bony structures.

  “What about the kind of surgery?” asked Joan. She heard ribs crack and closed her eyes.

  “They’ve all h
ad open-heart surgery but not necessarily for the same condition. We’ve checked anesthesia, duration of pump time, whether or not hypothermia was used. There were no correlations. That’s been the frustrating part.”

  “Well, why are you trying to relate them?”

  “That’s a good question,” said Cassi. “It has to do with the mentality of a pathologist. After you’ve done an autopsy, it’s very unsatisfying not to have a definitive cause of death. And when you have a series of such cases, it’s demoralizing. Solving the puzzle is what makes pathology rewarding.”

  Involuntarily Joan’s eyes stole a quick glance at the table. Bruce Wilkinson appeared as if he’d been unzipped. The skin and subcutaneous structures of the chest and thorax had been folded back like the leaves of a gigantic book. Joan felt herself swaying.

  “The knowledge is important,” Cassi went on, unaware of Joan’s difficulties. “It can have a direct benefit to future patients if some preventable cause is discovered. And in this situation, we’ve noticed an alarming trend. The initial patients seemed to have been older and much sicker. In fact, most were in irreversible coma. Lately though, the patients have been under fifty and generally healthier, like Mr. Wilkinson here. Joan, what’s the matter?” Cassi had turned and finally noticed that her friend seemed about to faint.

  “I’m going to wait outside,” said Joan. She turned and started for the door, but Cassi caught her arm.

  “Are you all right?” asked Cassi.

  “I’ll be fine,” said Joan. “I just need to sit down.” She fled through the stainless steel door.

  Cassi was about to follow when Robert called for her to look at something. He pointed at a quarter-sized contusion on the surface of the heart.

  “What do you think of that?” asked Robert.

  “Probably from the resuscitation attempt,” said Cassi.

  “At least we agree on that,” said Robert as he directed his attention back to the respiratory system and the larynx. Deftly he opened the breathing passages. “No obstruction of any sort. If there had been, that would have explained the deep cyanosis.”