Chapter 41

Jeff's Story

We got to the elevator and Sam pushed the call button. The doors opened to an empty car. I turned to Mom.

"I know you're not old enough for me to call you Mom. Do you mind if I call you Mildred?

She laughed. Why don't you call me Sue. That's my name."

"Sue. Sue. I like that. Like the Indians. And all this time I thought it was Mom."

She was smiling like a schoolgirl. Which is just as well since I felt like a schoolboy.

I'd felt that way since yesterday. I'd found the most prominent example of the type coma I'd spent my short career studying in a boy who had one of the most mangled bodies I'd seen short of the 7:00 newscasts from Viet Nam.

I'd come out to break the news and the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen was sitting next to the girl who'd been hanging on to the boy for dear life as they brought him into the emergency room. There was another teen with them who was obviously the injured boy's sister.

And I knew that all the crap I'd ever heard about love at first sight was true. I actually hurt looking at that woman.

I figured that she'd want the girls in on everything to do with the boy from the start but I gave her the choice to hear it alone. We all went into an empty exam room. As I held the curtain and she passed by, the thought of throwing her down on the exam table crossed my mind.

She told me she was Wes's Mom, and introduced his sister Les and his girlfriend Sam. There was some weird non-verbal communication that went between Sam and Les. I'd seen it as a kid on the farm when the new chicks were establishing a pecking order.

I took a closer look at Sam. Pretty girl. No, not girl. She was just reaching womanhood. She couldn't be over 14. There was a look about her. You can look but don't touch. I'm already spoken for.

Which I would have know without the inspection. When we got the call from the ambulance, the driver mentioned they were bringing the girlfriend in with them. He then said they were calling in for a rescue team when she just jumped in the car and moved it off the boy. I wondered how many people has died or not recovered fully because of their inability to take a chance. When they wheeled him in it was obvious that she was in love with the boy. Tears streaming down her face, constantly telling him to hold on,, don't die, I'm here, hang on. One of the ER nurses actually pried her fingers off the boy. I felt like smacking her but I knew we had to get him in the OR right away. He was showing signs of kidney failure.

I looked at the other one. Leslie. About the same age as Sam. Not as mature. But more out there. Look at me, I'm beautiful. She looked like she thought men were expendable. God knows I'd run into enough women like that at Harvard. They thought it was great fun to latch on to the campus genius until it became evident I wasn't a toy they could play with as they wished. Then without a pause, they'd drop me and be off to the next conquest. God, I sound bitter. But it's really just caution. If you get bitten by enough big dogs you learn to recognise them. And you stay away from them.

I looked back at Wes's mother. I'd just come out from removing her son's destroyed kidneys from his body. He could survive with dialysis but not many people had insurance that would cover such a "novelty." And not many had the $125,000 a year to buy it themselves. Of course, there were transplants, but there was a waiting list and I didn't think he'd stand much of a chance of getting one with two broken legs, a broken back and being in a coma.

I told her about his legs and his back.

She looked at me. "There's more, isn't there."

God. She could read me like a book. I told her about the kidneys. Then I told her what the cures were, trying not to be too optimistic. And then Leslie says "Take mine."

That's the last thing I expected to hear from her. Maybe there was something wrong with my instant assessment of her. I started going into the need for compatibility between donor and recipient and their mother told me the tests had all been done and they were a match.

She gave me the name of the doctor who had the charts and I called. They were like identical twins. He was sending the charts over.

I went back in and gave then a quick rundown. I told Les to get in a wheelchair because we had to verify some of the tests.

Les started to give me some crap about the wheelchair and I guess I tore into her. She got quiet, blushed and said "Yes Sir." Sam told her to behave. It looked like Les wanted to be noticed. And ate it up when she was.

I went to Admissions and let them know what was happening and start the paperwork rolling. I took Les downstairs myself to get her going on the tests. They like to have several days' notice so they can schedule enough coffee breaks or something. It bugs the hell out of them when I just show up and demand they do their jobs.

The charts had arrived for both Wes and Les. If these test results were right, they could switch heads. I almost canceled the rest of the tests, but if anything happened it would be my ass and the hospital's license.

I got a couple of teams ready to go for the surgery. I got some flak about having two operations at once both from the patient's standpoint and that of the hospital but when I mentioned Life Magazine if we were successful the hospital administrator moved over to my side. We had a team to clean out the various chips in this legs and insert steel rods to clamp them together, another team headed by me to remove the kidney from Leslie, then we were going to take a break while Leslie was taken to Intensive Care and then throw the new kidney in Wes. There were four nurses who were going to take turns holding Wes so he didn't mess up his back any more, two of them on, two off.

I went back to the lab and they were finishing up the last test. I waited and took Les to the elevator.

We stopped on the way down and Mom and Sam came in. I told them we were tentatively set to operate at 7 PM. We'd know for sure in about a half hour when we got the last of the test results.

When we got downstairs I got paged. It was the lab. The results were just what we needed. I told them the surgery was a go.

There was a candy striper chomping at the bit to wheel Les into her room. I told her I was proud of her and kissed her on the head. Les, not the candy striper. I also said I'd stop in before the surgery.

I went up to the room a couple of hours later. I'd ordered an enema for Les, just to make sure since she had breakfast. I asked her if she liked my surprise and she stuck out her tongue. I told her I was proud of her again.

Mom grabbed my arms as I was leaving. She gave me a kiss that told me she wasn't kidding. "Thank you for taking care of my children, Doctor." She made it very clear that there was more where that came from.

I could say that I went through the operations in a cloud, not remembering anything because of that kiss but I'm not like that. I'm never so alive as when I'm in an operating room, trying to outwit disease and disfigurement. Wes was a fascinating case. No way for a guy like me to be bored in that room.

We got through with Les and I gave the folks an update. There was quite a group. Sam's brother and 6 or 8 cheerleaders had joined Sam and Mom.

I pulled the kids' Mom aside. I told her it may not be my business but I got the idea there was more between Les and Wes than normal brother-sister love. She said "We all love him, Doctor." I wasn't quite sure how I felt about that. I told her I needed to get back in there and take care of Wes.

Transplanting the kidney into Wes went smoothly. God, this kid was strong. Not just physically, spiritual strength seemed to flow out of him, even in a coma. I could see why the women were all attracted to him. We sewed him up and got him into intensive care.

We rigged up a temporary brace to get him up off his back without harming the back itself. I took another look at Les. She was going to be fine. Another strong body, not so strong spiritually.

I was cleaning up when I heard Marie Johnson had finally left us. Such a fragile, tiny woman. I know she'd been hanging on for her husband. They'd been married for 60 years. I was happy for her but wondered how he was going to get along without her.