The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [38]
He had planned to make morning rounds along the same route he and Huttner had taken the previous night, but once in the hospital, he succumbed to a growing impatience to see how Anton Merchado was doing on his new treatment regimen.
The fisherman’s bronzed, weathered face broke into a wide grin as soon as David entered his room. With that Single smile David’s apprehension about the day evaporated.
“I had a turd, Doc!” Merchado’s gravelly voice held all the pride of a mother who had just given birth. “This morning. One beautiful, plop-in-the-water turd. Doc, I can’t thank you enough. I never thought I’d ever have one again.”
“Well, don’t get too excited yet, Mr. Merchado,” David said, barely able to control his own enthusiasm. “You certainly look better than you did last night, but I don’t think the diarrhea is gone for good. At least, not just yet.”
“My fever is down, too, and the cramps are almost gone,” Merchado added as David probed his abdomen for areas of tenderness and listened for a minute with his stethoscope.
“Sounds good,” David said, placing the instrument back in his jacket pocket, “but still no solid food. Just sips of liquids and several more days of the new antibiotic and intravenous fluids. You can tell your family that you’ll be in the hospital for another week if things keep going well. Maybe even a little longer than that.”
“Will you be my doctor when I get out?” he asked.
“No, only for a few days, then Dr. Huttner will be back. You’re fortunate to have him, Mr. Merchado. He’s one of the finest surgeons I’ve ever seen.”
“Maybe … and then again, maybe not.” Merchado’s squint and wise smile said that he would push the matter no further. “But you leave your card with me just the same. I have a bunch of relatives that are gonna be beating down your door to get you to do some kind of operation on them. Even if they got nothing wrong.”
With a grin that understated his delight, David left the room, then looked at the list of patients he had to see that morning. The names filled both sides of the file card on which he had printed them. Joy sparkled through him. For so many years he had not allowed himself even to daydream of having such a case load. As he neared the end of the hallway, he gave a gleeful yip and danced through the stairway door. Behind him, two plump, dowager nurses watched his performance, then exchanged disapproving expressions and several “tsks” before heading pompously to their charges.
David’s rounds were more exhilarating than anything he had done in medicine in years. Even Charlotte Thomas seemed to have brightened up a small notch, although simply seeing her with the benefit of daylight may have had something to do with that impression. Her bed was cranked to a forty-five-degree angle and an aide was spoon-feeding her tiny chips of ice, one at a time. David tried several ways to determine how she was feeling, but her only response was a weak smile and a nod. He examined her abdomen, wincing inwardly at the total absence of bowel sounds. No cause for panic yet, but each day without sounds made the possibility of yet another operation more likely. For a moment David toyed with the notion of stopping even the ice chip feedings, then, with one last look at Charlotte, he decided to leave things as they were.
At the nurses’ station he wrote a lengthy progress note and some orders for maneuvers he hoped might improve her situation. By the time he finished it was nearly one o’clock. He had twenty minutes for coffee and a sandwich before he was due in his own office. Five and a half hours had passed in what seemed almost no time at all. He tried to remember the last time it had been like this and realized it had probably been eight years. Not, he reflected