I pushed back the curtain and found Marge lying on a gurney. She had an IV running into her left arm and a green plastic oxygen mask stuck over her mouth and nose. Her face was the color of uncooked bread dough.
She pulled off the mask and gave me a weak smile as she reached out a trembling hand.
“Norrie… I’m so glad you’re here.”
I took her hand. Her skin was cold.
Marge Harris… not simply a patient… a very special someone in my life.
She’d been Margery Scarborough back when I was twelve and she about twice that. She had an education degree from Notre Dame of Baltimore but, with no openings for teachers in the local school systems, she’d made do by living at home, substitute teaching, and giving piano lessons.
Margery was gentle, sweet, and patient, and I looked forward to the moment she’d arrive for my weekly lesson. To my teenage eyes she was beautiful, intelligent, graceful, poised, and charming—everything I longed to be. She became a sort of big sister. She hadn’t minded my size, commiserated with my fruitless efforts to lose weight, cheered me up when I was down. During some lessons we’d just sit and gab and laugh and do very little piano playing. She was just the person I needed at that time in my life.
The piano lessons and the visits stopped when she got married and moved away to Lebanon. I’d been brokenhearted then. But she’d been there for me, and I’ll never forget that. I owe her.
Later on, before I left town myself, I heard she’d had a baby. A little boy.
Marge was now a matronly brunette in her forties; one of those empty-nest ladies who turn all their nurturing instincts outward.
Tragedy had prematurely emptied her nest when, years before my arrival in town, her only son had been killed in a car crash.
So Marge volunteered her time and effort to just about every charitable cause in Carson County. She was one of the good people. Always had been. One of the first patients in the practice to refer to me as “my doctor.” She had faith in me, heeded my advice—gave me props, as they say.
Life is strange. Marge had been my hero. Now she was looking at me as if I was hers.
“How’d this happen, Marge? You never told me you were allergic to peanuts.”
“Well, it’s been so long since I had a reaction, I guess I didn’t think to mention it. I mean, you weren’t ever going to prescribe peanuts, were you?”
I smiled. “No, not likely. What happened? Couldn’t resist a Snickers?”
“Lord, no.” She frowned. “I always check ingredient labels—I’ve been doing it so long it’s automatic. The strange thing is, the only thing I’ve eaten today is a banana and a breakfast bar—you know, one of those Havermill power bars—and they’re nothing new. Stan and I have been eating them for months.”
I’d gobbled more than a few Havermills in my day. High protein and low fat, they’re supposed to help you lose weight. Never worked for me. Of course, eating a dozen a day might have had something to do with that.
“Maybe they changed the ingredients.”
“Could be. I’ll have to check later when I get home.”
“That won’t be today, I’m afraid. We’re going to keep you overnight.”
“Oh, no! I have to get back! The Children’s Concert is Saturday and there’s still so much left to do. I can’t—”
“You can,” I said in my no-nonsense tone. “You’re in no shape to go home today. We’ve got to make sure your blood pressure is stable before we let you go. By tomorrow you’ll be a lot stronger.”
If I sent her home now I could see her BP plunging as she got out of bed or tried to maneuver a flight of stairs. She could break something, or worse.
“But I hate hospitals. I want—”
I was still holding her hand so I gave it a little extra squeeze. “You almost died, Marge. Doctor McIver told me if the cleaning girl hadn’t found you, you wouldn’t have made it.”
“Alison? I don’t remember. Alison saved me?”
“That’s what I’m told.”
“God bless her!”
“Looks like we’re going to have to get you a double set of EpiPens.”
“Why?”
“Well, the one Alison used didn’t do the whole job.”
She gave me a sheepish look. “Oh. That. Well…”
I had a pretty good idea where this was going.
“How old was it, Marge?”
“Old,” she said.
“How old? Are we talking the Truman presidency? Or maybe when Hannibal crossed the Alps?”
She smiled. “Even older. Very old.”
I shook my head. Anyone with a severe allergy to anything—bee stings, penicillin, peanuts—needs to keep an EpiPen within easy reach. It auto-injects a dose of epinephrine that can mean quite literally the difference between life and death. But if it sits around too long, it loses potency. Using a “very old” EpiPen like Marge’s was probably equivalent to injecting water.
“First thing you do when you get out of here is get a new one. I’ll give you a prescription—”
“Marge?” said a male voice behind me.
A good-looking, middle-aged man in a dark brown business suit swept through the curtains and stopped at the far side of the gurney. His longish brown hair was thinning and receding along his temples; horn-rimmed glasses gave him a professorial look.
“Marge, are you all right?”
Mr. Harris, I gathered. The one who’d taken Marge away from me. I’d never met him but knew he was Lebanon’s go-to guy for insurance.
“I’m fine, Stan, really.” She didn’t look overjoyed to see him.
“I got the call at the office and got here as soon as I could.”
“I’m sure you did.”
I felt the temperature around the gurney drop about twenty degrees. Any colder and our breaths would be fogging.
“I thought you were dying!” he said.
“That’s what they tell me, but I’m going to be fine now that Norrie’s here.”
I couldn’t let Joe go uncredited. “Don’t forget Doctor McIver. He’s the one who saved you.
“Yes, but you’re going to keep me safe.”
“Oh, and your cleaning girl deserves a raise.”
“Alison?” Mr. Harris said. “Oh, right. It’s Tuesday. But why…?”
Since Marge didn’t seem to be in any hurry to introduce us, I extended my hand across the gurney.
“I’m Dr. Marconi.”
“Stan Harris,” he said. “Glad to finally meet you. Marge talks about you all the time.”
I repeated what Joe had told me about the cleaning girl’s part in the rescue, and answered his questions about what had happened, mentioning the power bar.
“A Havermill?” he said. “We’ve both been eating them.” He pulled something in a bright yellow wrapper from a jacket pocket. “Here’s one. But there’s no peanuts in them.”
“May I see that?”
He handed it to me and I scanned the ingredient list. He was right. No mention of peanuts.
Stan leaned toward Marge. “Did you eat anything else?”
She gave him a cold look. “Of course not.”
Definite disharmony in the Harris house.
Stan looked puzzled. “Then how—?”
Marge ignored him and turned to me. “I’ve read where some food manufacturers run different products through the same production line and sometimes there’s cross contamination.”
Stan reached his hand toward me. “May I see that again?”
I handed it back and watched him read the label. He looked up with a gleam in his eye.
“If there’s peanut contamination in this, they’ll hear from me. Damn well better believe they’ll hear from me.”
I could almost see phrases like product liability suit and big settlement scrolling across his forehead.
The American way.
I did a quick exam, then entered a history and physical and admitting orders into the computer. Stan was still hovering by Marge’s side as I said good-bye.
She grabbed my hand. I saw tears in her eyes. “Norrie, please don’t make me stay.”
“I can’t make you do anything, Marge. All I can do is advise you as to what I think is best. You can take it or leave it. If you want to walk out, we’ll ask you to sign a release, but I can’t stop you.”
Her eyes went wide. “You can’t?”
She acted as if this was some sort of epiphany. People seem to equate a hospital with a prison: Once you’re in, you can’t leave until we let you. But it’s nothing like that. You can always sign yourself out AMA—against medical advice.
“Then that’s just what I’m going to do.”
Stan said, “I don’t think that’s wise, Marge.”
She ignored him and sat up, but before she could swing her legs over the side, her already gray face went two shades paler. She groaned as she dropped back, her head bouncing on the pillow.
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Your blood pressure’s way down. It’s going to take a while before it stabilizes.”
She grabbed my hand again. “But I’m scared.”
“Of the hospital?”
She nodded.
Hospitals feel almost like home to me, so sometimes I forget how scary they can be. The loss of autonomy has to be the worst—the knowledge that people you barely know or have never met are making decisions about what you wear, what you eat, how far you can walk, whether you get to use a toilet or a bedpan. They’re sticking needles in your arms and pumping God-knows-what into your veins. They’re shoving tubes into every orifice you’ve got. Plus they have these sterile rooms where they take you and rob you of your consciousness so they can slit you open and rummage around in your innards.
Terrifying. Truly terrifying.
I gave her hand a squeeze. “You’ll be fine, Marge. You have my personal guarantee. No one’s going to so much as take your temperature without checking with me first.”
That seemed to have the hoped-for effect. She relaxed her death grip on my fingers but didn’t let go.
I told her, “I’ll be back after office hours to check on you again. Until then, hang in there. Everything’s going to be fine.”
I extricated my hand and headed for the exit.