Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [208]
“BFO” was Big Fucking Operation, and “Triple A” was Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm. B.C. loved acronyms and claimed to have invented a good many of them. A patient near death was CTD—Circling The Drain.
“A four dirtballer? … I guess he does terribly with a big operation?” I offered.
“No! Just the opposite. You see, he's already demonstrated his capacity to survive. Heart attacks, strokes, stabbings, falls off buildings—his protoplasm is resilient. Lots of collateral vessels, backup mechanisms. He waltzes out of the recovery room, farts the first night, pees on the floor trying to get to the bathroom, and does great despite the bourbon the family sneaks in to add flavor to the ice chips, which are all he's supposed to eat.
“The zero-to-one dirtballers are the ones to watch out for. They are your preachers or doctors. Men like Walters. They live good clean lives, stay married to the same woman, raise their kids, go to church on Sundays, watch their blood pressure, don't eat ice cream. You try a BFO for a Triple A and you will be CDSCWP.”
Canoeing Down Shit Creek Without a Paddle.
“As soon as the anesthesiologist brings the mask near their face, your zero dirtballer has a heart attack on the goddamn table. If you manage to operate, the kidneys conk out or the wound breaks down. Or they get confused, and before you can call the Freud Squad they've jumped out of the window. So you see, your Mr. Walters was lucky.”
Deepak took a drag on a cigar-size joint that Nestor passed to him. He handed it to me. “Here,” he said, holding the smoke in, and speaking in a clipped voice. “The point is … clean living will kill you, my friend.”
The cannabis did nothing for my fatigue. Soon I felt my face and body turn to wax. I stared into the sky above Battleship. The sounds— good-natured yelling, screams, the throb of a boom box, the clang of a basketball rattling the metal rim, the squeal of tires—were a symphony. They matched the chiaroscuro designs on the brick wall. I felt I could see into Battleship and that I was watching the lives of the hundreds of Americans living there, families who got their medical care from us. I felt like a visionary.
“Doesn't it seem strange,” I said, after a long while, struggling to frame my question so it wouldn't sound silly, “doesn't it seem strange that … here we all are, foreign doctors—”
“You mean Indian doctors,” Gandhi said. “You're half Indian, but luckily for you it's the pretty half. Even Nestor here has an Indian father, he just doesn't know it.”
Nestor threw a bottle cap at Gandhi.
“Yes, well, doesn't it seem strange,” I went on, “that here we are, a hospital full of Indian doctors and on the other side of that wall are the patients we are taking care of. American patients, but not representative of—”
“You mean black patients, mon,” Nestor said in his lilting accent. “And you mean Puerto Ricans.”
“Yes … but what I am getting at is where are the other American patients? Where are the other American doctors for that matter?”
“You mean where are the white patients? Where are the white doctors, mon?”
“Yes!” I said. “Precisely!”
“Look here, Marion,” Gandhi said. “You mean to say you hadn't noticed this fact till just this moment?”
“No … I mean, yes, I have. Don't be silly. But my question is, are all hospitals in America like this?”
“My goodness, Marion, you do understand why you are here and not at the Mass General?”
“Because … I didn't apply there.”
I was unprepared for the laughter that greeted me. Just when I thought I was on to something profound.
Nestor got up and jogged in place. He chanted, “Heenot not apply there! Heenot not apply there!” The cannabis