The Sixth Sense (Brier Hospital Series Book 3)

by Lawrence Gold

  “Daddy…Daddy,” comes the plaintive cry beyond.

  “I’m coming girls,” I reply. I again grab the knob. This time it’s hot to touch, and shakes as it melds with my hand. As I turn the knob, the door rattles and suddenly bulges toward me. Some force was pushing from the other side, trying to escape. I step back reflexively with dread.

  “Daddy…Daddy,”…voices behind the door. “Come get us.”

  My hand returns to the knob. I gradually turn it until it clicks. The door suddenly swings open with force enough to send me reeling backwards. The expelled air is warm and fetid, the smell of death.

  I turn to see Lois and the girls standing before the doorway of our home. Their wide eyes and Lois’s hand to her mouth tells me something’s wrong.

  I feel it approaching from behind, and just before I turn to see what it is, Lois screams, “Don’t look back…run, and whatever you do, don’t look back.”

  I run, but soon feel its hot breath on my neck.

  “No Daddy the girls scream,” as I trip and fall to the ground.

  Arnie thrashed in bed screaming, “No…No!” He’d raised his arms as if he were fighting off an assailant.

  Shocked, but pleased to see Arnie move and hear his voice, Lois hugged her husband. “It’s okay Arnie. I’m here. You’re all right. It was a dream, a bad dream.”

  I sat upright and looked around the room. “It was on me. It was so real. It couldn’t be only a dream, could it?”

  “You’ve been out for quite a while, sweetie. It’s incredible that you’re back with us.”

  “Out? Back? What are you talking about?”

  Just then, Jack arrived. “My God, Arnie, you’re back!”

  I stared at Jack. “Back from where? What am I doing here?”

  Lois broke into tears while Jack studied me. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “It’s hazy, but I recall the office, a headache, the sensitivity to light…It was encephalitis, right?”

  “No question about it. You were lucky to get through it.”

  “I was out for a while, I know. How long was it? A few days?”

  “Arnie, you were in a coma for a little over a month.”

  “A month! A month. That’s not possible, Jack.”

  “Ask Lois. She was here most of the time.”

  I turned to Lois and grasped her hands. “Are you okay? The kids?”

  “I’m fine. We’re all fine.” Lois paused. “It was horrible. You were so sick…I thought I’d lost you…” Lois wept.

  “Don’t,” I said. “The worst is over. What happened with my patients?”

  “Your internist and family practitioner friends either came in to run the office or agreed to see your patients in their practices. Everybody’s fine.”

  I slumped back on my pillow trying to digest everything. After several minutes, I sat upright. “Maybe my worst patients will decide not to come back.”

  “No such luck, Baby. Your loyal patients await your return, especially Missy Cabot. She’s been asking for you and asking...and asking...”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Connie Rinaldi was in for her fall checkup in preparation for what was likely to be another challenging winter for her bronchitis. She worked as an elementary school psychologist in Berkeley. She loved the job, but in winter, sick students felt obligated to share their bugs with everyone.

  Jim McDonald, her internist, entered the examining room. “How’s it going, Connie?”

  “I’m doing well.”

  “When was your last attack?”

  “May, I think. Every spring, all that pollen kills me.”

  “It’s time for your Flu shot, and this year, I’m giving you Pneumovax, the pneumonia vaccine.”

  “Forget it, Doc. The last time I took the flu vaccine, it nearly killed me. The reaction was so bad, I think I’d rather have the flu.”

  “That’s probably what happened, Connie. You got the flu. This vaccine contains dead virus and never causes disease.”

  McDonald picked up Connie’s office chart and flipped to her pulmonary function tests. “Look, Connie, your breathing tests show that each bronchitis and asthma attack has cost you lung function. You don’t have enough reserve lung capacity if you’re unlucky enough to catch the flu or develop pneumonia.”

  Connie half smiled. “I feel so good after talking with you, Dr. McDonald.”

  “Don’t give me a hard time, Connie. I wouldn’t suggest it to you if I didn’t think it was important. The flu shot we give every year, but the pneumonia vaccination should last for at least five years.”

  Connie smiled. “Get me down to a lower dose of cortisone, and we have a deal.”

  “I’ll try, but I’m not making this a quid pro quo. Roll up your sleeve.”

  As far as Connie could tell, the flu vaccination gave her a transient low-grade fever and a little aching. She couldn’t discern any physical effect from the Pneumovax.

  When Connie returned to school after the Christmas holidays, the kids arrived with the usual mix of infections from simple colds, influenza, and a variety of upper respiratory infections.

  They should have enough common sense to cancel assembly, she thought, as she sat in the crowded auditorium listening to a chorus of coughs and sneezes.

  “You look like you’re coming down with something,” Connie’s mother Tina said one evening three weeks later, staring with concern at her daughter.

  “That wouldn’t surprise me, Momma. The kids breathe and cough on me every day; it’s an occupational hazard.”

  “Maybe you should call Dr. McDonald.”

  “No, Mamma, not yet. The doctor gave me a whole bunch of medications that I need to use first. I’ve been through this a thousand times; I know what to do.”

  “Your Daddy and I, we worry too much. We can’t help it.”

  “I had the flu shot and the pneumonia vaccine in the fall. That should protect me.”

  When Connie’s cough became productive, she was concerned. She kept a clear plastic cup next to her bed to see the phlegm’s color. If it turned green or yellow, she could be in trouble. For three days, she coughed and wheezed more than usual, but this morning, when she awakened, she knew at once that whatever she had, it had taken a turn for the worse. She wheezed heavily and failed to respond to her inhalers and aerosol machine. The cup showed thick green phlegm with specks of blood.

  I’d better get on antibiotics, she thought.

  By the next morning, she wasn’t any better, so she called Jim McDonald.

  “I’m having another attack,” she said filling him in on the details.

  “How bad is it?”

  “I have it under control.”

  “Are you sure? I’d prefer to err on the side of caution.”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Connie?”

  “No, Doc. I’ll call you…I promise, if this thing gets any worse.”

  “Look, Connie, I trust you. You’re smart and you’ve been through this many times before, but don’t forget that it can get out of control quickly and you’ll wind up in the hospital.”

  “I don’t want any part of that, Doc.”

  “Call me every day until it clears. I’m in my office reading my mail every morning at 8:30. I’ll tell the service to put you through immediately.”

  “You’re worse than my mother, Doc. Thanks for caring so much.”

  “Just call.”

  Connie called the next morning. “It’s about the same, Doc. I’ll talk with you tomorrow.”

  Jim McDonald forgot the expected call from Connie until his nurse stuck her head into his office. “We’re ready for your first patient, Doctor.” It was 9:15 in the morning.

  “Give me a minute,” he said as he picked up the phone and dialed Connie’s number. The answering machine picked up after the sixth ring with her cheery message. He dialed her at school. “This is Dr. McDonald. I’d like to speak with Connie Rinaldi.”

  “I’m sorry, Doctor,” t
he school secretary said, “but Connie didn’t come in this morning.”

  “Did she call in sick?”

  “No, and that’s unusual. She calls if she’s going to be late or if she’s too sick to work. We’re a little concerned. “

  Me too, he thought as he dialed Tina, her mother.

  “It’s Dr. McDonald, Tina…”

  “What’s wrong?” she shouted.

  “Have you heard from Connie?”

  “No, tell me what’s happening, Doctor.”

  “She didn’t call me this morning as she promised, and she didn’t go to work or call in.”

  “Dear God…” she cried. “We’ll go right over.”

  “Call me immediately when you get there.”

  Twenty minutes later, while Jim McDonald was examining his first patient, his nurse banged on the door. “It’s the phone, Doctor, an emergency!”

  Jim put the phone to his ear and heard the crying screams of Mrs. Rinaldi. “She’s all blue. She won’t wake up. What should we do?”

  My God, he thought, she’s dead! “Is she breathing?”

  “I think so, but it’s high pitched wheezes. Do something, Doc.”

  “I’m sending an ambulance. Stay with her and let them in when they come. They’ll take her to Brier Emergency.”

  Eight minutes later, the EMTs burst into Connie’s bedroom, took one look at her, and placed her into the ambulance. They raced with sirens blaring toward Brier.

  An EMT was on the radio, shouting, “We’re four minutes out. This is a bad one. Asthma, I think. She’s cyanotic with blue lips and hands. She’s barely moving any air. Get ready.”

  Jim McDonald worked through his morning awaiting the emergency room’s report. When he tried to reach the ER physician, the nurse said he’d call the moment he was free.

  At 11:30, Herb Fine, the ER physician, called. “We’ve loaded her up with cortisone and bronchodilators and she’s breathing better. The x-rays of her chest show bilateral pneumonia and the examination of her phlegm suggests that she has pneumococcal infection. I’ve started antibiotics.”

  “Does she need to be in the ICU or the respiratory care unit?”

  “Maybe not the ICU, and the RCU would be my first choice except they’re full with influenza and pneumonia cases. They’ve been so for a week.”

  “Okay, put her on the medical ward. I’ll see her in about a half hour. Thanks for the help, Herb.”

  When Jim arrived at noon, he went immediately to the fifth floor medical unit to admit Connie. Joseph and Tina Rinaldi sat at her bedside. Tina was holding her daughter’s hand and crying.

  Connie looked up as Jim approached the bed.

  Thank God she’s awake, he thought.

  She pulled the clear plastic oxygen mask away from her face and with a wheezy whisper said, “I was fine when I went to bed, Doc. I’m so sorry,” she sobbed.

  Jim placed the mask back on her face and smiled. “Don’t blame yourself. I should have forced the issue a lot earlier. Maybe we could have prevented this.”

  “No,” she said in muffled tones, “I should have listened. I never learn.”

  “What’s wrong, Doctor?” asked Tina.

  Jim signaled her parents to walk with him into the hallway. “It’s pneumonia, and it’s bad.”

  “Bad. What does that mean?” said Joseph.

  “Well, this kind of pneumonia wouldn’t be a problem for anyone with normal lungs, but as you know, Connie’s lungs are far from normal. I think we got it early enough for her to respond to antibiotics, but it going to be iffy for a while.”

  “Why pneumonia?” Tina asked. “I thought you vaccinated her against pneumonia.”

  “I did, but maybe it’s a strain that the vaccine did not cover. I’m not sure.”

  Jim wrote Connie’s admission orders. She’d receive potent intravenous antibiotics, large doses of cortisone-like medications, and vigorous inhalation treatments. He asked Alan Morris, a pulmonary physician, to consult to see if he had any other suggestions, he didn’t. This time, they knew that Connie was skydiving without a reserve parachute.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Brian Shands ran the original Horizon Pharmacy. Henry Fischer met regularly with him.

  Brian was the product of suburbia and Myra and Bruce, his 60s challenged parents. Since he was old enough to walk, Brian’s mother and father were determined not to repeat the overindulgences of their own parents. Brian and his younger sister Karen spent hours in the minivan or the big SUV shuffling from lesson to lesson and game-to-game.

  When Brian looked back at his formative years, he couldn’t remember any significant amount of free time, time to play, time to do nothing, or time to stare at the wall or out the window. In fact, the few moments of solitude he recalled left him ill at ease. Why didn’t he have something to do? He filled those moments with fantasy games and comic books.

  As much as he tried, Brian couldn’t remember failing at anything. Nobody won or lost at baseball or soccer. His parents managed to find a way to approve and reward every accomplishment, however minor.

  School bored Brian. He read by the age of three and soon found an interest in American historical figures, especially the presidents. At his parent’s prompting, Brian would challenge adults with an encyclopedic knowledge of arcane presidential trivia. Brian obsessed over his history books, but failed to recognize, as did his parents, that his behavior by the age of seven had changed from cute to boring or worse. His demands for attention became rude and inconsiderate. He was overtly disrespectful to his parents, who joked at this behavior, thinking that Brian’s precociousness justified his disgusting and insulting comments.

  When Brian reached age nine, even his parents couldn’t ignore the problem.

  One evening, while his parents entertained three other couples, Brian took front stage and challenged all with his trivia. Eyes rolled upward and scowls appeared—not again, they thought. Finally, Myra said, “That’s enough, Brian. Why don’t you go to your room?”

  Brian looked at his mother with disbelief. “Why don’t you shut up?”

  Myra recoiled and her eyes widened with shock. After an embarrassed tittering laugh, she said, “That’s not funny, Brian. I don’t want to hear that language in this house.”

  Brian sneered. “Get a life, you bitch,” then stormed from the room.

  He’ll grow out of it, she thought, and over time, his behavior seemed to moderate.

  In high school, he achieved straight A’s. He assumed the persona of Michael J. Fox on Family Ties. He participated in the debate club and became its president. In addition, he joined the John Birch Society, the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce, and the National Rifle Association.

  Brian hated the school jocks, their arrogance, and especially their popularity with girls.

  Willie Howard, the star linebacker, was in constant academic difficulty. One day, after overhearing Willie fret at the next table over upcoming examinations, Brian said, in a voice too loud, pointing with his head toward Willie. “Too much inbreeding in that family’s gene pool.”

  The laugh at Brian’s table was short-lived as the room suddenly became silent. Willie rose and strode slowly toward Brian.

  Willie loomed over a stunned Brian. “What did you say, you son-of-a-bitch?”

  Brian froze. His hands shook and he paled. He couldn’t think up a glib comment or utter a word.

  Willie grabbed Brian by his shirtfront, and pulled the smaller boy up, until Willie stared down, their faces separated by inches.

  Suddenly, the football coach and a male teacher grabbed both boys from behind.

  The coach held Willie firmly, and whispered into his ear, “Don’t do it, Willie. He’s not worth it.”

  “Look,” said a football player, pointing to a puddle on the floor by Brian, “he peed in his pants.”

  They all pointed and laughed.

  Brian reddened as they pulled Willie away, straightened his shirt, and left the room without a word. He wouldn’t
forget this day and his humiliation. He’d avoid Willie in the future, but vowed revenge at the first opportunity.

  Three months later, when an anonymous tip led school officials to Willie’s locker, they found Dianabol, a performance-enhancing steroid. After weeks of scandal, news headlines, investigations including blood tests, that showed no drugs in Willie’s system, the authorities concluded that someone had planted the drugs in the locker.

  Brian watched in amusement.

  Brian obtained a modest academic scholarship to the University of Utah, but at the end of his second year, his father’s business failures robbed Brian of the financial resources needed to continue in the business administration program. To continue in school, he transferred to the school of pharmacy. This department offered partial financial support, but he needed to work and take on additional educational loans.

  Brian met Lilly Bender, a cashier at Bernard’s Pharmacy in Salt Lake City, where he moonlighted. When he first came to work, Lilly lit up in an immediate attraction to Brian, his dark hair, eyes, and his seriousness that contrasted with her usual dates. He was lean and dominated over her five feet, two inches.

  “You’re too serious, Brian. Don’t you have any fun?”

  He blushed. “Don’t have time for fun, Lilly.”

  She looked up at him with doe-brown eyes. “There’s more to life than school, you know. I can add a bit of excitement, honey,” she crooned, “try me.”

  Brian still considered himself a virgin since he’d ejaculated on the teenage hooker before penetration, a humiliating memory that still haunted him.

  Lilly, a thin, pale, but attractive college dropout was completely comfortable in her sexuality and took pleasure in Brian’s education. She taught him virtually everything he knew about sex, and how to please a woman in bed.

  On impulse, he married Lilly after graduation and accepted a position in the East Bay of San Francisco at Horizon Pharmacy. To his embarrassment, Lilly worked in Wal-Mart as a cashier until she had their first child, Melodie. They remained heavily in debt, and although Brian had a stable position, it was worlds away from his fantasies of material success. Over time, he became convinced that his marriage was a mistake. He felt trapped by circumstances out of his control. His goals now appeared out of reach.