Walking Through Walls

by Philip Smith

  At this point Christina began screaming while clutching her mother, “No! No! No! Mi madre is coming home. Mister Smith promised me. She comes home.” All of Christina’s expensive makeup was running down her face. This was a nice dramatic touch that really increased her credibility. It was as if she had been rehearsing her whole life for this moment. If she had wanted a second career as an actress on the Spanish telenovelas, this would have been her showstopping audition.

  While Christina continued to cry, a nurse came over and whispered something in Dr. Siegel’s ear. He then turned to my father and said, “You know what, I’ll put Mrs. Cortez back in her room. We will reevaluate the case. But if in the meantime she dies, we will have you arrested for manslaughter. And I’m not kidding.”

  “That is fantastic. Thank you, Doctor.” My father was beaming. He had prevented an unnecessary operation and saved Mrs. Cortez from painful and potentially life-threatening surgery.

  All of us went back to Mrs. Cortez’s room for a few minutes. Christina bent over and kissed her mother, who was still under anesthesia and oblivious to the current crisis. She then said a little prayer in Spanish and crossed herself when she was finished. We left the hospital confident that everything was going to be okay.

  By the time we reached the parking lot, the orderlies had secretly wheeled Mrs. Cortez back into the operating room, and the surgery began. The doctor had cleverly placated my father. When the doctor opened her up, they found no cancer but instead an impaction in the colon, exactly as my father had diagnosed. Since they already had her open, they proceeded to remove a large portion of her colon as a “precaution” and closed her back up. Those were the days when doctors had no accountability, and malpractice suits were rarely, if ever, filed.

  The next morning Christina came into the office again in tears. My father was surprised and expected her to be overjoyed. Just like the day before, my father asked, “Christina, what’s wrong? Tell me.”

  “Mi madre. They make another operation, and now she has no stomach.”

  “What? But I thought—” My father immediately picked up the phone and called the hospital. “Dr. Siegel, please…he’s in surgery? Please have him call Lew Smith. Yes, Plaza 8-7552. Yes, oh yes, he’ll know who I am.”

  What my father didn’t know and didn’t bother to check was that Dr. Siegel was at that moment back in surgery operating on Mrs. Cortez again. Overnight her colon had become infected, and the infection was spreading through her body. They now opened her up to remove even more of her colon. My father turned to Christina, who was still crying, and said, “We’ll take care of this. I’ll find out what’s going on.”

  With that, my father took out his pendulum and began watching it spin in response to his questions. It was making large counterclockwise circles. After about a minute, he looked up and said to no one in particular, “Something is really wrong.” His eyes darted around the room as if he were searching for an answer. He looked back down to the pendulum and watched it spin again. This time it spun to the right in ever widening circles. Pop closed his eyes. His lips started moving. About a minute later, he opened his eyes and said to Christina, “This is very strange. I think they are operating again on your mother, and I’m not sure why. Nothing was wrong with her to begin with. I’m getting that she has an infection. I don’t quite understand this. Why would she have an infection when all she has is an impacted colon?” Pop had it correct; it’s just that his logic was getting in the way of the information that was coming through.

  My father picked up the phone and called the hospital again. Dr. Siegel was still in surgery. “Christina, let’s go over to the hospital and find out what’s going on.” All of us got in the car and drove back to the hospital. When we got there, Christina’s mother was in Intensive Care, and my father asked the nurse at the front desk to page Dr. Siegel. They waited about a half hour, and still no doctor. My father went back to the nurses’ station and explained the urgency of speaking with Dr. Siegel.

  “I’m sorry, but Dr. Siegel is not available. I’ve put the page in and let him know that you are waiting to speak with him. I believe he is still in surgery.”

  “We need to know the status of Mrs. Cortez and why she was operated on again. There was no need for any of this.”

  The nurse stopped listening and answered the phone. “Fourth floor ICU…”

  The day passed. Finally, around three in the afternoon, I spotted Dr. Siegel coming down the hall, speaking with several other doctors. I nudged my father, who got up and started walking toward him. The doctor saw my father and kept walking.

  Pop ran after him. “Dr. Siegel, it is important that I speak with you.” There was no way that the doctor did not hear my father, but he picked up his pace and tried to avoid him. My father caught up to him and said, “I need to know what has happened with Mrs. Cortez.”

  “You’re asking me? I thought you were psychic and had all the answers; why don’t you look it up with that magic pendulum of yours?” With that, the doctor began to walk away.

  “I do know what happened, and I already consulted my pendulum. I know exactly what is going on.”

  “Okay, genius, you tell me, since I’m only the doctor.”

  “It’s very simple. You made a mistake, a terrible mistake. You performed unnecessary surgery on Mrs. Cortez. You didn’t want to listen to me because you think you know better. As a result, you took out half her colon when you didn’t have to, and now she’ll have problems the rest of her life. Plus, a serious infection set in, causing you to go back in. There was no cancer, just like I told you. And now it’s too late. There’s nothing you can do. But Mrs. Cortez was the sacrificial lamb to your big overblown ego.”

  At first the doctor blanched, his eyes opening wider and wider. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Apparently no one had ever spoken to him like this. Pointing his finger right between my father’s eyes, the doctor tried to control himself as he said, “You, my friend, are deranged and psychotic. How dare you speak to me this way! I saved Mrs. Cortez’s life. Had I listened to you, she would have been dead. Do you hear me? I saved her life. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have people that need me.” The doctor spun on his heels and headed down the corridor.

  My father walked back to Christina, who looked at him with the face of a broken person. “I am so sorry. I did everything I could,” he said. “Your mother should not have been operated on. It wasn’t necessary. They lied to me. But she’ll be okay.” Christina held my father’s hand and cried quietly. I looked away.

  As soon as we got to the office the next morning, my father called the hospital to check on Mrs. Cortez’s condition. She was still in Intensive Care. My father asked to speak with Dr. Siegel. Once again, he was in surgery. He asked the nurse why Mrs. Cortez was still in the ICU; she should have been in her room recovering. “Well, she’s recovering from surgery.”

  “But that was yesterday.”

  “No, she had surgery last night.”

  “I think you have someone else’s chart. I want to know about Mrs. Cortez. Mrs. Sonia Cortez. She had surgery yesterday.”

  “Sir, I am looking at the chart. It says she had surgery last night.”

  “That’s impossible. There was no reason for this.”

  “You need to call Dr. Siegel’s office; I’m sure they can tell you more.” Click.

  Pop called the doctor’s office and asked the receptionist to speak with the doctor. The receptionist gave her standard answer: “I’m sorry, Dr. Siegel is in surgery today. He can return your call this evening. Who’s calling, please?”

  “I’m calling about Mrs. Cortez. The hospital just told me she was operated on last night, and we did not know about this. I need to know what is going on.”

  “Are you her husband?”

  “No, I’m a friend.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t release any information except to family members.”

  “Her daughter is standing next to me but does not speak English.” My fat
her motioned for Christina to come stand next to him.

  “Well, I can’t give you any information.”

  “Let me put her daughter on the phone. You talk to her in English, and I’ll listen in on the extension.” Pop covered the receiver and said, “Christina, pick up the phone on the other desk and say hello.”

  Warily, as if in a Hitchcock movie, Christina lifted the phone and shook her hair out of the way before she put it to her ear. “Hello?”

  “This is Dr. Siegel’s secretary, Amanda. Are you Mrs. Cortez’s daughter?”

  “Yes…”

  “Well, Dr. Siegel is in surgery, and I will tell him to call you later this evening and let you know what is going on. Thank you. Bye.”

  Before my father could intervene, Amanda hung up. Christina looked at my father, waiting for her next cue. With great resignation in his voice, he said, “We need to go to the hospital, but first let me see what I can find out.”

  My father grabbed his ruler and pulled out the pendulum from his shirt pocket. With the pendulum in his right hand, he slowly moved it up the ruler. His hand stopped at the five-inch mark, and the pendulum swung in a clockwise direction. He wrote down something on a pad, then pulled out a copy of Gray’s Anatomy. In his left hand, he pointed with the straightened paper clip to the various organs in the body. He looked over at the pendulum, which again swung clockwise. Finally he pulled out a list of medical conditions, which he scanned with the paper clip. The whole process took about three minutes. He looked up at Christina and said, “Your mother has peritonitis.” Christina’s eyes widened in fear. “When the surgeons operated again, they made more mistakes, and your mother’s abdominal cavity became infected. This is terrible. It’s too late to do anything. None of this should have happened.”

  Having watched this drama for a couple of days, I was finally waking up to its seriousness. “Is she going to die?” Not the question I should have asked in front of Christina, who began weeping. The last few days were taking their toll on her.

  “Christina, Christina, she’s not going to die. She will get through this; it will take awhile. I can’t repair what they’ve done. They’ve taken out too much of her colon. I can do whatever is possible to help her heal quicker so that she doesn’t have any more infections. I think we need to go down to the hospital and find out what’s going on.”

  Back we went to the hospital. My father asked for Mrs. Cortez. The nurse didn’t respond but first checked her records. “I see that Mrs. Cortez is still in ICU.”

  “Okay, thank you.” My father took Christina’s hand and headed toward the swinging silver doors of the ICU.

  “Excuse me! Excuse me! Sir, sir, sir, stop! You can’t go in there. Stop!” The nurse got up from her station and started running after my father. “Stop. No visitors. You can’t go in there.”

  My father turned around and said, “We’re going to see Mrs. Cortez. I need to see how she’s doing.”

  “No, no, you can’t. No visitors. I’m sorry.”

  “But we need to see Mrs. Cortez. This is her daughter. She wants to see her mother.”

  “No. Not now. You’ll have to wait until she’s moved to her room.”

  “When?” My father really wanted to get in that room and see what was going on.

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you call us this afternoon, and we’ll let you know.”

  “Can’t you just let her daughter in for a few minutes to see her mother?”

  “No. Not right now.”

  “Can we call Dr. Siegel? I’d like to speak with him.”

  “I’m sorry, but Dr. Siegel isn’t here today; he’s off on Fridays.”

  “So who is looking after his patients?”

  “One of his associates.”

  “May I speak to him?”

  “Let’s see. I think Dr. Falk is covering for him today. I need to go back to my desk and try and page him.”

  Christina and my father followed the nurse. She paged the doctor. My father reached over and held Christina’s hand. Within a few minutes, a chipper Dr. Falk appeared. He was the opposite of the imperious Dr. Siegel. Warm, friendly, open. He approached my father with a smile and an open hand. “Hello. I’m Dr. Falk. How can I help you?”

  My father introduced himself and Christina. “I’m inquiring about Mrs. Cortez. This is her daughter. We’re very concerned about her. This is now her third operation, and I’m wondering where it’s going to end. It seems things are getting worse.”

  “No, not at all, she’s doing quite well.” Dr. Falk punctuated his statement with a big smile.

  “Doing well?” my father asked.

  “Uh-oh,” I thought, “here it comes.”

  “Dr. Falk, Mrs. Cortez was fine when she walked in here. She had a simple impaction that could have easily been remedied. Instead she had dangerous and unnecessary surgery. As a result, she became infected, and now she has peritonitis. She’s lost much of her colon, all because she was misdiagnosed.”

  “Misdiagnosed? I’m sorry, I don’t understand. I’m not that familiar with this case, but I doubt that she was misdiagnosed. Mrs. Cortez had cancer that needed to be removed. I’m not sure if we’re talking about the same patient.”

  “Did they actually find any cancer during the procedure?”

  “I wasn’t there, but I’m sure they did. Otherwise, why would they have operated?”

  “I can tell you they didn’t find any cancer, because there never was any cancer to begin with.”

  “Mr. Smith, I can understand that this is very upsetting, but let me assure you that everything—”

  “How would you feel if they took out most of your colon for no reason?”

  “Well, I doubt that they would have—”

  “Look, it’s too late to fix this. When can we see Mrs. Cortez?”

  I was relieved that he didn’t start going into the whole psychic-pendulum-diagnostic-doctors-don’t-know-anything routine. Let’s just find out where Mrs. Cortez is and go home, was my attitude.

  “Well, uh, I, uh, let me check. I believe she is recovering in the ICU, and it may not be until tomorrow that she will be able to return to her room, but let me make sure. I’ll be right with you.”

  Dr. Falk went behind the nurses’ desk and started looking through charts. He appeared to be slightly flustered by my father. Looking up, he said, “Yes, here it is. Mrs. Cortez should be back in her room tomorrow. She’s heavily sedated, as this last surgery took over three hours, and—”

  “Three hours? What were you doing to her for three hours?”

  “Well, um, she had some complications, and we were able to correct them, and now she’s fine.” Dr. Falk worked hard at forcing a smile.

  “Dr. Falk, is there any way we can get in to see Mrs. Cortez for just a few minutes? We won’t disturb her. I think I may be able to help her, if I could just get in there for a moment or two.”

  “Help her? In what way? Are you a physician?”

  “No, but I think I can speed her recovery and eliminate the recurrent infections that she is experiencing due to the unnecessary surgery.”

  “Oh. Well, I think that she’s doing quite well.”

  “Doctor, if she has one more surgery, she won’t survive. You will have killed her.”

  “Well, but Mr. Smith, we are not killing her, and she is doing fine, and she will be in her room tomorrow, and if you’ll excuse me, I have some patients I need to see. I’m sorry, but I think tomorrow would be better for you to visit.”

  Once the doctor left, my father turned to the nurse and asked if we could get into the ICU for just five minutes.

  “I’m sorry, no one is allowed into the ICU—visiting hours are over.” She went back to reviewing her charts.

  My father looked at Christina and said, “Let’s go. I’ll do what I can for your mother from the office.”

  As soon as they got back to the office, my father sat down at his desk and pulled out his diagnostic charts. For the next half hour, he used his pendulum,
his paper clip, and a variety of medical texts to further diagnose and send healing energy to Mrs. Cortez. While my father worked, Christina went into the back and put up a pot of strong black espresso. Its thick, roasted aroma filled the office. Growing up around los exiliados, I started drinking Cuban coffee at a very young age, while all the other kids were still sucking on their bottles of Yoohoo. As I sipped my cafécito, I picked up the phone and started gossiping with friends.

  About a half hour later, my father stood up from his desk and said out loud, “Okay.” He went to the bathroom, washed his hands to remove whatever negative vibration had accumulated, and headed to the back workroom looking for Christina, who was calmly applying nail polish with intense concentration. My father said to her, “Christina, listen, I’ve lifted your mother’s fever. That’s why they didn’t want to let us in to see her; the infection was taking over her body. These doctors have made a total mess of this. I wish I could have stopped them from operating. I couldn’t. I think I need to have a lawyer on retainer just to threaten all the doctors who won’t listen to me. But the good news is that her fever is gone. I brought her temperature back down and removed the infection. You will be able to see your mother tomorrow. Don’t get upset when you see her; she won’t look good, she’s been through a lot. I’ll keep working on her so that we can get her home in two or three days. She is going to have a colostomy bag. With what they did to her, she might never have a normal bowel movement. She will constantly autotoxify and will always be sick for the rest of her life. However, after she’s home for a few weeks, and the body has had time to rest, I may be able to fix her colon, and within six months she’ll be functioning normally. Please be patient with me, and I’ll do everything I can for her.”

  Christina had had enough excitement for the day. She remained focused on her nails, admiring them and applying more polish as my father spoke. Without looking up, she said, “Thank you. Thank you, Mister Smith.”

  The next day, Mrs. Cortez was back in her room, although she was in and out of consciousness. My father and Christina drove over and spent several hours at the hospital. Mrs. Cortez had indeed been running a dangerously high fever, which was now gone. She needed to rest.