Читать книгу Joseph Levy Escapes Death - Rick Strassman - Страница 12

FIVE

WALKING SLOWLY DOWN THE HALL toward the nursing station, Joseph Levy notices several empty single rooms. The nurses put him in one with a roommate: a bloated sweaty Hispanic man, likely in his 50s. He’s apathetically delirious. Dimly aware of his mental state, he plays it safe by staring straight ahead, neither moving nor saying anything. Better not to give himself away by speaking nonsense and non-purposefully flailing, which he’d be doing if he were home with his family. Levy glances at his enormously grotesque swollen abdomen and diagnoses liver and kidney failure; by the looks of it, due to alcoholism. The ruin of one major organ feeds back onto the ruin of the other. Fluid accumulates in the abdominal cavity with nowhere to go, pressing outward, seeking release.

The TV blasts a cops and robbers drama downward from high up on the wall between their beds. Squawking radio dispatchers, men shouting at each other, police and fire sirens blaring, exploding guns, squealing tires, pulsing music. Chaos ricochets off the blank walls and hard linoleum floor and fills the room. Leonard asks the roommate to lower the volume, which he finally figures out how to do while fumbling with the remote.

The room smells worse than it sounds. Like a sick hungover alcoholic: stale, sour, humid, cloyingly sweet, and feverish. The air barely moves.

Levy asks himself: Why did they put me in this room when there are open single ones? He answers: It’s easier to take care of two patients in one room than two patients in two rooms. The first glimmerings of fear stir. His welfare ranks lower than the staff’s ease.

What can he do? There must be something he can do. He sees where this could lead if he doesn’t exert control. When in trouble, do something. If he can’t, have someone else do something. In fact, one of the reasons Levy became a physician was to impose his decisions on those around him. A childhood filled with following others’ irrational and dangerous decisions surely plays a role.

The noise. It’s bad. He can control that. It’s too noisy. His roommate is oblivious, and Levy can’t count on him to keep the volume low. Within a few minutes he’ll wonder why he can’t hear the TV and reach for the remote. Despite lowering the volume, it’s still a din, just a quieter one. It’s auditory chaos and threatens to unhinge him.

Levy has an idea. He says to Leonard, “How about going to Radio Shack and picking up some noise-canceling headphones?”

At the same time, he begins to pray. Prayer must accompany Joseph Levy throughout this episode, wherever it leads and however long it turns out to be. If he dies here, he wants Hebrew words passing through him at that moment. He’ll even keep his lips moving with no sound escaping, when he can remember.

Leonard leaves and returns in a half-hour. Levy puts on the headphones. There’s little change. He turns to his friend and says, “These don’t help. How about packing them up and returning them when you have a chance?”

“No problem,” Leonard says agreeably, acknowledging his friend’s tenuous hold.

I need to get out of this room, Levy thinks. The noise, the smell, and the sight of my roommate. It’s an assault surrounded by a nightmare.

Again turning to Leonard, he says, “I need a single room. Could you ask the front desk about putting me in one of them?”

“That’s a good idea.”

Leonard walks out to the nurses’ station. A respiratory therapist enters and says hello. Strangely, she doesn’t treat him before leaving. Did she forget? Or are there no orders? He’s got pneumonia.

“See you later!” she chirps cheerily.

The nurse comes in, introduces herself.

“What do you do?” she asks.

Without thinking, and almost desperately, he answers, “I’m a physician.”

Why the pressure to say it so quickly? One reason is that it’s true. Another is his naïveté. Levy wants to establish a relationship with the staff. They’ll interact as peers, or at least members of the same guild. He’ll understand medical terminology, their shared language, and thus contribute to his care. We’ll cooperate as professionals, he thinks, working together for my speedy and full recovery.

Lastly, and in full awareness, he wants to control his care; that is, their behavior. He expects them to treat him according to his standards. They have already failed once, in their room assignment. He needs to take firmer control, and right away.

The nurse laughs when he tells her he’s a psychiatrist. “Oh, I could use some help. We all could use some help on this floor.” Ha ha.

Her first attempt at starting the intravenous line is successful. God is great.

A social worker comes in. She’s there to talk with the roommate and his family. It’s impossible not to hear every word.

She raises her voice, as if speaking loud makes her more understandable to native Spanish speakers. “YOU KNOW, MR. SAENZ IS HIV-POSITIVE. SO, HIS LIVER IS WEAK. AND HE CAME IN WITH A BLOOD ALCOHOL 10 TIMES LEGALLY INTOXICATED.”

As if Levy needs additional reasons to escape this room.

She notices him on her way out. Slowing, and then finally delaying her exit, she approaches the side of his bed.

“Hi. It looks like you have a friend here with you.” Meaning: You don’t want me to help you, do you?

As if reading his mind, she next says, “Do you need anything?”

Levy is still processing his roommate’s condition and can only reply, “Like what?”

She thinks for a moment and says, “Would you like to see a priest?”

That’s a strange response, but he likes the idea. Talk Scripture and God with someone. The meaning of life, sin, repentance, the nature of healing, and the power of the Psalms.

His face, despite its pallor, brightens. She asks, “What’s your faith?”

“I’m Jewish. But don’t worry. Anyone who is kind, relatively devout, and can carry on a biblical conversation.”

She looks doubtful. Why, he wonders? Is it his Jewish faith, or something else about his answer? She tries a little harder to sound helpful. “Anything else?”

“I forgot to tell anyone I’m vegetarian. Could you please let the kitchen know?” He’s not a vegetarian but doesn’t want to second-guess the nature of the meat they might serve him.

Before she steps out, he adds, “One more thing. I don’t see myself moving much in this state. Could physical therapy come by? They’ll force me to move.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to your nurse.” She hurries out before Levy thinks of anything else.

He calls Karen. “I’m in the hospital. I have pneumonia. This may be an ordeal.”

Silence.

He says, “I’ll call you after I’m back home and then we can reschedule.”

She insists. “No. I will come out and visit you in the hospital. I will sit by you in a chair. If I can sleep in your room, I will do so.”

He barely knows this woman. He got sick visiting her. She’s not his girlfriend, nor his wife. She’s a stranger, and he doesn’t want a stranger around. It’s a hostile and confusing environment already. He’s vulnerable, and doesn’t need anyone else ignoring his wishes, which Karen’s already doing. Nor is this the time or place for a courtship.

He can’t change her mind. Laboring, he nearly gasps, “Okay.” Again, he crumbles. Then, “My friend Leonard is here. The two of you could work out the details.”

The staff move him into a single room. He hears one of them say, “This is the smallest room in the hospital. I hate it. It makes me claustrophobic.”

Q: Why put me in it?

A: To punish me. I complained about their putting me in with Mr. Saenz.

He imagines the conversation at the front desk: Who does he think he is? So what that he’s a doctor? We’ll show him who’s in charge.

Levy meets his physician. Dr. Hashmi, a pretty young East Indian woman. She’s not wearing a wedding ring. They discuss “their” choice of antibiotic.

She lilts, “Have you ever taken Levaquin before?” He loves her voice. And her pullover sweater reveals a hint of cleavage.

Mrs. Levy, Joseph’s late mother, had, and often, taken Levaquin for recurring pneumonia. Somehow he’s reassured by the prospect. His mother and he may be together in this.

“No. But I had pneumonia in my 20s and got tetracycline as an outpatient. My fever broke in three days. Can you use that?”

Dr. Hashmi melodiously answers, “We don’t use tetracycline anymore for first-line treatment of community acquired pneumonia.” She smiles. “That’s what you have.”

“My mom used to get pneumonia and did fine on Levaquin.”

“Oh,” she murmurs approvingly. “Then let’s start you on that.”

Levy remembers his wish for opiate oblivion. “This all began with a crown replacement that went bad. My tooth still hurts. My lower back, too. Could I get routine Vicodin?”

Hasn’t he already run through this malpractice-laced scenario with Dr. Thompson? But his wish to sleep, to escape this impending apocalypse, overrides everything else.

“That…would…be…all…right,” she says slowly and uncertainly.

So much for the wisdom of directing his own care. He’s Dr. Hashmi’s senior and look what he’s suggesting. And look what she’s agreeing to.