M*A*S*H Goes To Maine

by Richard Hooker

  Dr. Jones said, very simply, “I think his right common carotid is blocked. I’m going to do an arteriogram and find out. The kidney can wait.”

  That afternoon, assisted by Hawkeye, Spearchucker did a carotid endarterectomy, that is, he reamed out deposits of fat and calcium which were blocking blood flow to the right side of Doggy’s brain. Within twelve hours, Doggy regained normal speech and the use of his left side. In less than forty-eight hours, Dr. Moore had had two major operations.

  Another morning came. When the surgeons visited their patient, he said, “I want a day off, but Duke, you plan on fixing that kidney tomorrow.”

  “Yes, Doggy, I guess that’s a good idea,” agreed Duke.

  Enough time had gone by to suggest that the surgeons had not missed bullet holes in stomach, large bowel or small bowel and that all they had to do was fix the kidney. Duke did a heminephrectomy. He removed the lower third of the left kidney, which was destroyed, useless and bleeding, but was able to preserve the rest of the organ.

  Doggy Moore’s recovery from his third major operation in five days was, in a sense, quicker than the surgeons could logically hope for but slow enough to make them nervous. Emotionally they were as depleted as was Doggy physically.

  Half the population of Spruce Harbor and the surrounding area seemed to hover around the hospital.

  Hawkeye kept visitors out of the intensive-care unit except for Emma Moore. Two days after the kidney surgery, Elihu and Bessie Finch-Brown were allowed to visit. No matter how hard he tried, though, Hawkeye couldn’t protect the patient completely. A variety of emergencies, or seeming emergencies, arose with Doggy’s patients. Various doctors kept running into the ICU, saying, “Hey Doggy, so and so has such and such.”

  Only Doggy knew his patients. Sick as he was, he was still practicing medicine. And then came the decline in surgery. The surgeons had not fully realized it before, but now they understood that half their surgical practice came from Doggy. Suddenly patients, even those scheduled for routine surgery, found excuses to postpone it. “I’d just as soon wait till Doggy gits back” was the standard statement. They knew Doggy wasn’t going to do the surgery or even assist. They just wanted to know he was around. After a week, Hawkeye decided to let recalcitrant surgical candidates have a few words with their hero, lest the surgical world come to a standstill.

  The day that Dr. Moore was released from the intensive-care unit and transferred to a private room was of historical interest. His wife Emma knew of the transfer. So, somehow, did Bette Bang-Bang, Mattress Mary and Made Marion. They were waiting in the corridor with two boxes of candy and a pot of yellow chrysanthemums.

  Sixteen days after the accident, Lew the Jew Pierce and Coot Yeaton, under the cover of darkness, landed at Wooden Leg’s wharf, carrying a quart of Old Bantam whiskey. Stealthily, they entered the hospital through the doctor’s entrance, boarded the elevator and quietly, casually, sauntered down the hallway.

  They didn’t bother to knock, but they opened the door of Dr. Moore’s room quietly and tiptoed in.

  “Hey, Doggy,” said Lew, “how you feel?” “We is some sorry, Doggy,” said Coot.

  “You oughta be,” said Doggy.

  “We brung a jug,” said Lew.

  “In that case,” stated the physician, “all is forgiven. I’ll ring for ice.”

  At noontime the next day Dr. Doggy Moore, despite his involvement with the jug brought by Coot and Lew the Jew, was awake, alert and ready to go-.

  “I’m leavin’,” he announced to the head nurse.

  “You can't leave unless Dr. Pierce says so, Doggy,” he was told.

  “Now you listen to me,” said Doggy. “You go git Hawkeye and Trapper and Spearchucker and Duke and you git em all here. I want to talk to them.”

  There was a noon meeting which ended at one o’clock. The surgeons, summoned to Dr. Moore’s room, arrived at 1:05 P.M.

  “I’m leavin’,” said Doggy. “Got somethin’ to say. Three years ago, this had happened, I’d have died of a hole in my heart, but Trapper got me through that, so I could live to have a stroke. Then Spearchucker did that endarterectomy, or whatever you call it, so I ain’t paralyzed, which I would have been three years ago. Then Duke saved enough of my kidney to keep me going. By Jesus, I’m some glad I got shot in Spruce Harbor.”

  “Get out of here, Doggy,” said Hawkeye Pierce, “and hustle up some surgery. We can’t live on praise.”

  THE END