The Sixth Sense (Brier Hospital Series Book 3)

by Lawrence Gold

  Jack returned Warren’s stare. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

  “We go back a long time. I can’t believe you’re both withholding something from me.” Ben took a deep breath. “Arnie, several people, mostly nurses, have noticed your unusual behavior. They’re asking questions. I need answers.”

  I shook my head. “Maybe I came back to work too soon. Recovery from encephalitis may be more difficult than any of us expected.”

  “What is it?” pleaded Warren. “I want to help.”

  “There’s nothing I can add, Warren. What are they saying about me?”

  “Listen to me, Arnie. You have nothing but friends around Brier. You’ve changed. You’re unfocused and frequently distracted and the nurses are concerned. What about the outbursts, the anger? That’s not you, Arnie. Everyone knows it. Nobody’s out to get you.”

  “If you’re not charging me with anything, I have nothing more to add.” I hesitated. “I want to discuss something else with you, Warren, and it’s urgent. Can we talk about it?”

  “Jack?” said Warren, “help me out.”

  I shook no again.

  “I’m sorry, Warren. There’s nothing more I can say.”

  “Play it your way, you two,” Warren shouted, reddening. “I can’t…”

  A knock on the door interrupted.

  “What is it?” an agitated Warren asked.

  “Dr. Davidson, I have an urgent call for you on line one.”

  “Can’t it wait?”

  “It’s Mrs. Ruth Fischer. I tried to put her off, but she says it’s a matter of life and death.”

  Warren picked up the phone. “Ruth, this isn’t a good time…” With the phone fixed to his ear, he listened in silence. “They did what?” Warren shouted, turning crimson. “Ruth do you know what you’re saying?”

  Warren listened. “The district attorney…wait a minute Ruth, have you thought this through?” he said with alarm. He kept his ear to the phone. “Yes, I’ll notify everyone; the pharmacy, the cancer center and everyone who bought any of those drugs from Horizon, and yes, Ruth, I agree with you, I’ll contact our attorneys.”

  Warren turned, replaced the receiver, and stared at Jack and me. “Did either of you know about this?”

  “I suspected,” I said. “Jordan Goodman and I just put it together, and it’s what I wanted to discuss with you.”

  Jack looked upset. He turns to me. “What’s this about, Arnie?”

  Warren stared at me. “No more crap now. The police are involved. Tell me everything.”

  I reached into my pocket and extracted the lab report that came this morning. “Jordy Goodman took samples from Taxol infusions they give at the cancer center. Horizon Pharmacy prepared them.” I handed Warren the lab slip. “All samples are adulterated with quinine.”

  “Those fucking bastards,” Jack bellowed standing, and pacing. “I can’t believe it.” He shook his head and then stared at me. “It all makes sense, Arnie, the cancer recurrences, the failure of Pneumovax to prevent pneumonia, and the excessive use of EPO.”

  Warren held his head. “My wife says that at my core, I’m an idealist, but that the years have left me bitter and defeatist about human nature. She nearly had me convinced that not every puddle on the road hides a deep pothole, then something like this happens and we’re in the ditch. It’s a cynic’s dream come true.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Henry Fischer and Monica Kelly embraced on Horizon Pharmacy’s back office couch.

  She kissed Henry. “I’m sorry for bringing this whole mess down on you.”

  “It’s not your fault, Monica. My marriage is over. Ruth and I had drifted apart over the years. It was only a matter of time.”

  “This divorce is going to be messy. If I were you, Henry, I’d bite the bullet, give her whatever she wants. Get it over as quickly as possible. If you let it, the divorce will be expensive, painful, and never-ending.”

  “At least we’ll be together,” said Henry.

  Monica became silent. She turned her head away from Henry. “I’m not anxious to be part of this legal battle. I had enough of that with my own divorce.”

  “I don’t see that either of us has much choice. I’ll do the best I can to make this painless, but Ruth’s angry and she’s hired a ball-buster attorney who won’t be satisfied until she’s bled me for all I’m worth.”

  Monica stood. “Henry, we need to put our relationship on hold.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve accepted a position with Regency Drugs in Reno. Maybe after you and Ruth have settled this, we can get back together.”

  “You must be out of your mind. After all we’ve been through together, after…”

  Suddenly, loud pounding echoed throughout Horizon pharmacy.

  Henry and Monica looked to the door and Brian’s alarmed voice. “What the hell.”

  Four uniformed policemen and a plain-clothes detective rushed through the door. “We have a warrant to search the premises. You’re not to touch anything. Sir, please step away from the computer.”

  A loud knock brought Henry and Monica to the standing position. “Come in,” Henry said, barely able to utter the words.

  The middle-aged burly detective with a gold shield pinned to his coat entered with two uniformed officers. “We’re exercising a search warrant. Please have a seat. Don’t move, and do not touch anything.”

  “What’s this all about?” Henry asked.

  The detective handed him the warrant. “We’re looking at your records and your inventory on Taxol, EPO, and Pneumovax.”

  Suddenly, Henry felt a dull pain in his chest, a pressure building beneath his breastbone and then moving to his jaw and back. He couldn’t breathe. His vision blurred and the room spun. He grabbed for the table, as everything turned black.

  For Debbie Wallace, the visit to Stanley Becker was déjà vu, all over again, only this time she felt nothing. After the initial shock, after the words brain tumor, metastasis, recurrent cancer, Debbie’s mind became an emotional black hole, cold, and devoid of feelings. She sat for hours, immobile, and refused to talk with anyone, even her children.

  “She’s depressed,” Matt said when he called me two days later. “This was a shock to both of us. Debbie’s had such strength…I guess I took too much for granted. How much bad news did I think she could take? I assumed she’d snap out of it and we’d move on to do what’s needed, but if anything, she’s gotten worse.”

  “Bring her to the office this afternoon, Matt.”

  When I entered my consultation room, Debbie and Matt sat in the chairs facing my desk. “Give me a moment alone with her, Matt.”

  Matt squeezed Debbie’s hand, and left the room. Debbie held her head down, eyes fixed on her lap. Her face was flat showing no emotion. I moved into the chair beside her and took her hand. She looked up at me, but remained silent. I squeezed her hand, getting nothing in return.

  “I know you hear me, Debbie. I won’t try to minimize what you’ve been through. I understand it as well as anyone can who hasn’t been through it personally. It kills me to deliver the bad news, but…”

  She looked up at me with a sardonic smile. “Bad news? You call a death sentence, bad news?”

  Anger was better than nothing, I thought.

  “You’re right, bad news can’t possibly explain how you feel about this disease, but…”

  “You are right, Arnie. You don’t know a damned thing about how I feel. I keep making the same mistake over and over again. I’ll never learn. I made it in spite of everyone’s advice to reserve my optimism, for at least a while, but as usual, I don’t listen. I’m not going to make that mistake again.”

  “I never lied to you. I won’t lie to you now. You must trust me.”

  Debbie turned to face me and smiled as she caressed my cheek. “You’re a good man, Arnie. I know you want to help, but I’m done. I don’t have anything left.” Her smile evaporated and she lowered her head int
o her hands and wept.

  “Please listen. I talked with Stanley Becker at UC. We’re going to start you on the anticancer drug, Herceptin, we’re having remarkable results, and we’ll get rid of that brain metastasis simultaneously.”

  “I’ll do what you and Dr. Becker recommend, Arnie, but don’t ask me to hope. I don’t have it in me.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Monday morning commuters lined up on the two mile straightaway before the Bay Bridge tollbooths. Drivers jockeyed for position like it would make a difference—the triumph of personality over practicality.

  Matt looked around as he and Debbie inched along in traffic. “I don’t know how people put up with this every day.”

  Debbie remained silent.

  He reached over and squeezed her hand. “Don’t be frightened. Arnie said that the term, gamma knife, is misleading.”

  “I’m not frightened,” she replied in a monotone.

  “It’s a onetime deal, Debbie. Once and it’s done. After all you’ve been through, this will be easy.”

  Debbie listened to the encouraging words. They were words she’d heard many times before, but this time they came from a distance, muted by her own protective shell. Only the soothing sounds of Matt’s words touched her, for she knew, above all else, that he loved her, and remained obsessed with hope.

  She smiled tenderly. “It’s okay, sweetie, I’ll be fine.”

  As they took the ramp toward the Civic Center, thick morning ground fog draped the car, forcing them to slow. Eventually, they found their way to UC Hospital on Parnassus Heights.

  Dr. Becker was waiting for them and together they took the elevator deep into the medical center’s bowels. They entered the radiotherapy department where Becker introduced them to Dr. Richard Stark, the director.

  “I’ll see you later, Debbie,” Stanley Becker said, “Don’t worry, you’re in good hands.”

  Richard Stark was a friendly outgoing man in his early sixties. His white coat over a green scrub suit carried the film badge, a required device to measure one’s cumulative exposure to radiation. They sat at a small round conference room table.

  Stark flipped open Debbie’s chart. “Whoever called this device a knife, needed his head examined. I can’t think of a term more alarming or more flawed than that one. What we do is complicated, but it all boils down to a simple explanation. By using a computer, we can administer focused gamma rays to a specific location, sparing all of the surrounding tissue.”

  He stood. “Come with me.” He walked through heavy metal doors with a large yellow and red sign that read, Danger, Radiation Hazard.

  They followed him into a room where indirect lighting revealed a machine that resembled an enormous metallic football helmet. It had an opening in front for a sliding litter. The bleak, pale-green walled modern air-conditioned room sent chills through Debbie’s body.

  The chills, Debbie knew were not from the room’s temperature. “You’re not going to slide my head inside that machine, are you?”

  “Yes, we are, but first we need to fit you with an aluminum frame that will look like an astronaut’s helmet. This will allow us to direct the beams of radiation to the tumor. We’ll put you to sleep first. You won’t remember any of it.”

  “How long will it take?” Matt asked.

  “We’ve calculated the dose to 70 minutes. Afterward we’ll remove the frame, and keep you overnight for observation. The most common side effect that we see is a mild headache.”

  Debbie stared at the machine. “One shot is all it takes?”

  “That should be it.”

  Should? Debbie thought.

  Debbie remembered the IV’s pinch and counting backward from 100. The last number she recalled was 96, then nothing.

  In the recovery room, Matt stood at her bedside as she opened her eyes. “Welcome, sweetheart. I’m sure glad you’re back with us. How do you feel?”

  Debbie reached for Matt’s hand, squeezed it. “Tired and groggy. When can we go home?”

  “First thing in the morning.”

  Debbie’s mood was somber when she returned to my office later that week. Her affect remained flat, but she looked healthy. I took a deep breath, sampling the room and Debbie. I couldn’t detect the tonic water aroma or the tangy, musty stigma of cancer.

  “Drs. Becker and Stark called me. They’re pleased with your treatment.”

  “What next?” Debbie said, without emotion.

  Matt shook his head. “She won’t come out of this depression, Doc. Maybe you should give her something.”

  “Absolutely not,” I replied, looking directly at Debbie. I turned my gaze back to Matt. “She’s earned this depression, and if she weren’t depressed, I’d be more concerned. I don’t use medications for normal emotional responses to life’s difficulties.”

  “What if she doesn’t come out of it? Being this way can’t be healthy.”

  “Excuse me,” Debbie interrupted us with a slight smile, “I’m still here.” She hesitated a moment and then continued, “You haven’t answered my question, Dr. Roth. What’s next?”

  “Today, I’ll give you the first dose of Herceptin. That will take ninety minutes. Afterward, we’ll infuse it over thirty minutes every three weeks. Most people have either no or minimal symptoms like muscle aches and a little fever. Nothing like chemotherapy.”

  “How long will she need Herceptin?”

  “I don’t know,” I hesitated. “Maybe forever. We don’t know. If we’re fussing about it five or ten years from today…”

  I turned to Debbie and grasped her hands. “I know what you’re feeling. Forever doesn’t really mean forever. It means that by then we’ll know more or have better drugs. Don’t waste your energy worrying about something that might never happen.”

  It was a beautiful night with the western horizon burning scarlet-orange, so Lois and I decided to take a walk. Early evening has been my favorite time, as the still warm earth radiated aromas of the land into a splendid symphony of smell. My past comments about the pleasure of these aromas seemed oddly out of place now as my nose was overwhelmed with hundreds, maybe thousands of new potent fragrances.

  I held Lois’s hand as we walked down the street. Holding hands was natural for us.

  “It’s lovely tonight, Arnie. How are you handling all this input?”

  “So many aromas surround me. Many I know while others are foreigners. It’s difficult to keep my head on straight.”

  We walked about three miles, nearing the entrance to our regional park when I spied a street person or what was the PC term for these people today? Homeless? Residentially challenged? Involuntarily leisured? The man pushed a shopping cart crammed with his belongings piled high and extending a foot above the rim.

  I smelled him from fifty feet. He had the stink of a body unwashed for a decade, combined with the stench of urine and feces. As we got closer, the fetid putrid smell of decay exploded, especially as he smiled at us through brown rotten teeth and bubbling, bleeding gums.

  “Let’s cross the street, Lois. That guy’s disgusting.”

  “He’s only one of the homeless that live in and around the park. They’re harmless.”

  “Maybe so, but to my nose, his emissions are repulsive.”

  As we stepped off the sidewalk to cross the street, he approached me and grabbed my arm. “Hey mister, got any spare change?”

  I don’t know what came over me as my mind exploded with uncontrollable rage.

  “Get the fuck away from us,” I yelled as I grabbed his upper arm and pushed him backwards. Unstable on his feet, he fell into his cart, toppling it over and spilling its contents over the sidewalk.

  I started for the downed man enraged and out of control. My right arm retracted to deliver the first blow when I felt Lois pulling at my arm yelling, “Arnie, it’s enough. Leave him alone. You’ll kill him.”

  I started to pull away from Lois’s grasp, still infuriated, and when I turned, I met a look that froze me at once. They
were the eyes of my wife, the woman who loved me. They reflected her sadness and disappointment at what had become of me.

  “This isn’t you, Arnie. I barely recognize you.”

  “I’m sorry, Lois it’s…”

  “Don’t say anything. Take me home.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Christy Cooper was a fine arts major at UC Berkeley. She was twenty-two and had spent three months as an exchange student in the southwest China provinces.

  Her problems evolved slowly following her return to the states. “I just don’t feel well,” she told Paul Cass, her fiancé. “I’m tired all the time and my appetite’s not worth a damn.”

  Later, her symptoms became more generalized with profound fatigue, headaches, achy joints and muscles, and chronic diarrhea.

  Paul handed her the phone. “Don’t be so stubborn, Christy, call your doctor.”

  Jim McDonald, her internist, was concerned at the outset. Christy’s first office visit had occurred when she was thirteen. Her chart contained only routine physicals and an occasional upper respiratory infection or a sprain. She was as solid, stable, and healthy a patient as he had in his practice. Symptoms following a trip to China suggested an unusual infection, possibly a parasitic infestation. X-rays, scans, laboratory tests, stool examinations, and consultations followed.

  “I’m sorry, Christy. I don’t know what’s going on, but more than one physician who knows your case has suggested that this illness may fit into the category of fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome.”

  “What does that mean for me?”

  “I hate those diagnoses because the criteria for them are too soft. In addition, labeling you with either diagnosis does little in terms of treatment.”

  “What should I do?”

  “I’m going to treat your symptoms, the muscle aches, the diarrhea, etc., and watch closely to see if anything develops.”

  “I trust you, Dr. McDonald, but this whole thing sucks.”