Destroy (A Standalone Romance Novel) (10 page)

“Oh, you’re not
interested in performing surgery of any kind then?” I asked. Some doctors are
really true GPs at heart. Maybe this guy was one of them.

“No, not at all. I mean I
have to know what surgical procedures entail, but I am more interested in the
people who are not going under the knife. My thing is infectious diseases. I
want to finish my internship anywhere in North America and then get myself a
post overseas. I want to be where people really need a doctor. Where I can do
the most good.”

“And you think you’ll
always have a surgeon at your disposal to perform even minor surgeries–like an
appendectomy?”

“Well, no, I don’t expect
to have anyone at my disposal as you said, Dr. Williams,” Corey retorted,
taking his first bite of hamburger. “I…hum…I want to perform as many minor
operations as I can, but I hate this watching business. I feel…hum”—he took
another bite—“I feel like I have to try it for myself rather than watching Dr.
Wonderful do it.”

“In that case,” Tiffany
put in, “you’ll have to wait another month before you’ll be authorized to try
it for yourself.”

Chapter
10

The afternoon, I admit,
dragged on. I must have been tired, or some sort of routine was settling on my
mind perhaps. We visited the rehab center and assisted a couple of people in
taking their first steps after spinal operations. It was hard to see these
perfectly healthy human beings being incapable of putting one foot in front of
the other. Not only was it hard for them to force their legs to move as
directed, but it looked excruciatingly painful. Encouraging their efforts was
going against the grain. You feel better if you can alleviate or even eradicate
pain rather than forcing the person to endure more of it. I could not say that
I enjoyed that session, but it was a session I would not have missed for
anything. Perhaps one of the reasons for it was that I knew the hurt the
patients experienced now was only payment for the freedom they would enjoy
later. They would be walking again in a few weeks or months.

Tiffany, for her part,
seemed to take it all in stride. She looked unaffected by the struggle these
patients went through. When we exited the rehab center, Dr. Kerry invited all
of us to gather on the fifth floor for our daily powwow session. It was still
early by hospital standard, but I was glad this day had come to an end. I was
an emotional wreck.

Dr. Kerry nailed it in
one when she told us that emotions have no place between doctors and patients.
I silently reminded myself that emotions better not be present between surgeons
and doctors either. Dr. Kerry insisted on the point.

“There is a lot you can
do, and a lot you will do for each of your patients if you display the
detachment necessary to do the job perfectly. If you get involved with a
patient, emotionally or otherwise, you better remove yourself from his or her
care immediately.”

“What about relationships
between doctors and other medical staff?” Tiffany asked.

Although I didn’t
appreciate her posing such a delicate question in my presence, I was all too
ready to hear the answer.

“If you mean having any
sort of relationship–sexual or platonic–with your fellow doctors or the nursing
staff,” Dr. Kerry replied, “the hospital administration frowns upon it. It is
distracting to say the least. Yet, what you do on your own time is none of the
hospital’s business. Nevertheless, don’t be fooled by the relaxed attitude you
may have observed between medical staff and even between surgeons and doctors. If
these relationships are not sanctioned by marriage or a common-law union,
you’ll find yourselves in heaps of trouble if something were to go wrong during
an operation, for example.”

“You mean that you can’t
have a boyfriend or a girlfriend?” Corey, the hamburger boy, asked.

“Did I say that?” Dr.
Kerry retorted. “I don’t think I did. I said
what ever
you do outside this hospital is your business. But if you happen to have an
affair of any sort with one of your colleagues, be careful. That’s all I’m
saying.”

Everyone in the room
nodded. We all knew how pre-occupying a relationship in the workplace could be.
And having one’s mind on something else than your patient’s well-being during
surgery could lead you to make an irrevocable mistake. Then, it’s bye-bye to
your MD career for good.

Dr. Kerry went on
discussing each of the sessions we had in rehab and how to alleviate the
feeling of helplessness accompanying such experiences.

“The human body is a
marvelous machine,” she said, “which generally takes time to adapt to our
repair and maintenance interventions. It’s difficult for the brain to register
what you’ve done to its body. There’s no mouse you could click or finger you
could slide from one screen to another. There is nothing that we can do to tell
the brain, ‘come on now,
move
!’ It will not accept the
command and it will not even acknowledge the change.”

“You’re talking about
phantom pains, are you?” I venture to ask.

“Exactly. Our amputees
and other patients from whom we have taken a limb or an organ can tell you
their
missing leg is itching or they have cramps in an arm
that is no longer there. As for organ removal it is not as often that you will
hear a woman complain of menstrual pain when she had a hysterectomy–but it does
happen.”

Two coffees later and a
few more pages of notes to be studied that evening, we were all ready to go
home. Everyone made their way to the locker room, chatting about the day.
Tiffany and I had a neighboring locker. She was faster than I was in most
things. That night she was even in more of a hurry, saying that she would not
wait for me, given that she wanted to bring her car to the garage and get an
oil-change before the weekend.

I brushed my hair out of its
chignon and was looking forward to having a long, leisurely bath before bed. I
wasn’t used yet to all of the walking around we had to do every day. But I was
pleased to be where I was. Except for Jeff’s presence in the same hospital, the
internship seemed to be as I had expected: a J-curve of learning.

As I closed the locker
door, I turned around only to find myself face to face with Jeff.

“Good God! Do you always
scare your interns that way?” I blurted. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“And you floored me when
I saw you this morning.” He looked at me, peering into my eyes. I was melting.
“What on earth are you doing here, in this hospital?”

“I applied for doing my
internship here, why? Is this hospital reserved to your choice of doctors
perhaps?”

“Couldn’t you have
applied somewhere else?”

“Listen, Dr. Aldridge,
you should know how it works. We don’t choose where we want to work. Unless
your daddy is head of surgery, you just have to accept what’s given to you.”

By this time, I had my
back glued against the locker’s door. He was inches from my body and his lips
even closer to mine. If I didn’t suffer from palpitations before, I was close
to fainting then as I ever had been.

“Okay, now that we’ve got
to work together, what are we doing about our feelings?” he whispered, brushing
his lips against my earlobe.

Suddenly, I thought of
what Dr. Kerry had told us. A relationship of any sort between medical staff
could endanger our careers if we were to make a mistake in the operating
theater.
It’s too distractive.

Using all the strength I
could muster and all the courage I could amass, I pushed Jeff away from me. “I
think you need to get your mind out of my pants, Jeff,” I said, groaning the
words with all the boiling passion that was menacing to erupt into his face.

He regained his balance
with no problem. He saw how mad I was. I didn’t care. I didn’t want him and his
handsome body to blur my vision at every turn.

“Alright, alright, I hear
you. But can we, at least, talk about this?”

“There’s nothing to talk
about, Jeff. We spent a fantastic night together eight months ago. We needed
each other’s company, each other’s loving touch, but after all that, you left
me stranded. You ran out on me and I truly didn’t appreciate being used for the
night.”

“I’m sorry, but I had to
leave. Now you can understand why, can’t you?”

“If only you had made
mention of you being a surgeon, I would have been the first to open the door
and pack your bag, Jeff. But as it were, it felt as if you had no need for me anymore
and after a bowl of cereal, you just…”

He had his body against
mine again.
God, please tell me what it’s
going to take for me to get rid of this guy?
“Jeff, please. Don’t do this.
I don’t want to have any more to do with you. From now on, let’s just be
colleagues, working in the same hospital, okay?”

“Are you sure that’s what
you want?” he asked as he stepped away from me.

I nodded twice. “Yes, I’m
sure. I will always admire you. Your skills as a surgeon are something else. But
we can’t have a relationship. An affair of any kind would not work–you know it
and I know it.”

“Alright, Dr. Williams,
I’ll take your word for it–for now.” He turned on his heels, ready to leave the
locker room. Then, in second thought I suppose, he turned to me again. “But if
you change your mind, be sure to let me know, okay?”

I had to smile. “You’ll
be the first to know, I promise.”

When the weekend burst in
our faces, in all of its late August splendor, Tiffany and I were already up
and working to ensure her bedroom was empty and ready to receive her furniture.
The movers were on their way.

She had told me that she
only had a bed, a dresser, a night table, a couple of lamps, and a TV coming.
That was fine with me. The bedroom was large enough to accommodate everything
on the list. What I didn’t expect was the chest of drawers, the stand-up
mirror, the rocking chair, and the eleven boxes that came with it.

Tiffany was as surprised
as I was to see all of the extras making their way on the trolleys to her
bedroom.

“My mother is truly
impossible, Hattie. I swear to you, I did not ask for all this. I wanted to
keep a few things in my room at home for when I go back for a visit maybe.”

I believed her. It was
clear that Tiffany had lived with an overprotective mother for far too long.
Her requests, choices or decisions were always vetoed by her parents–her mother
in particular. Now, we were lumbered with more furniture than we needed and
with more kitchen stuff than we would ever want–five of the boxes were full of
small appliances, dishes, flatware, towels for the kitchen and bathroom, and so
forth and so on. The movers even brought up an ironing board and a new iron,
still in its box.
Who’s ironing clothes
these days,
I asked myself.

I had no words. I couldn’t
very well scold my friend for something she hadn’t done. However, even though
the apartment was large, it would not contain all that stuff adequately.

It was “Mrs. Camborne to
the rescue” time. Fortunately, the dear lady had watched the men as they were
getting the large pieces of furniture into the elevator. She came up with the
last load of boxes.

“Oh my, my,” she said,
looking at all the boxes still standing in the hallway and the ironing board in
the middle of the floor in the living room. “You won’t be able to fit all that
stuff in the closets and cupboard, now will you?” She looked at me.

“You know we won’t, Mrs.
Camborne, and we don’t want our place to look like we’re holding a rummage sale
every day either.”

“It’s my fault,” Tiffany
murmured. “My mother packed everything she thought I would need in the next
three years, I guess, even though we live in the same city.”

“Maybe we should send
half of that stuff back,” I suggested.

“Oh no, you don’t, dear
girl,” Mrs. Camborne countered. “That would offend Tiffany’s mom. And that’s
something you don’t want to do.” She paused and looked at the boxes standing in
the kitchen. “I tell you what. I’ve got a storage room at the back of the
garage. You girls sort the stuff you really need and re-pack the rest. When
you’re ready, we’ll move the boxes downstairs, okay?”

“That’s great of you to
offer, Mrs. Camborne, thank you.”

“Don’t you give it
another
thought.
You girls need to keep your mind on
your work and not on sorting out kitchen utensils. And, please don’t forget to
store that ironing board; it would look terrible anywhere!”

Tiffany and I erupted in
laughter. We totally agreed with the suggestion. No ironing in our schedule–forever.

That night, after several
hours of unpacking and re-packing and up and down trips to the storage room, we
were pleased to put our feet up and order Chinese for the evening we planned to
spend in front of the TV.

We were in the middle of
eating a delicious combination of shrimp Chow Mein and noodles when the phone
rang. I was surprised. It was late for anyone to call.

As soon as I picked up
the receiver, I heard my mother’s voice. She sounded horrified.

“Mom? What’s the matter?
What’s happening?”

“It’s your dad, Heather.
He’s not well.”

“Is it his heart again?”
I abandoned my box of shrimps and sat on the edge of the couch.

“Yes, but there’s
something else. I should have told you before, dear.”

“Come on, Mom, what is
it? What did Dr. Bernard say?”

“He said that your dad
will need to have a pacemaker pretty soon, to help his heart beat regularly.”

“But that’s good, isn’t
it?”

“Yes, yes, it is. But
it’s the other thing that’s really worrying me.”

“Alright, Mom, what’s
going on?”

“Your dad has dementia,
Heather. He doesn’t remember half of the things I say, and he can’t remember
most things he does. I have to watch everything he does, especially his meds. I
have to hide them from him. Sometimes he believes he’s taken them and doesn’t
want me to give them to him. Or other times, he believes the opposite. I tell
you, it’s getting worse now than it’s ever been.”

“But he was fine at
Christmas. What happened since then? Did he have an accident or a traumatic
experience in between?”

“Well, yes. I don’t know
that you can call it a trauma really, but last spring, he almost killed someone
on the road because he was distracted. He already was absent-minded then, but
ever since that accident, he’s getting worse. Dr. Bernard thinks that since he’s
got dementia and that it likely Alzheimer’s causing it.”

“It should be better when
he gets his pacemaker. It will stabilize his metabolism. He won’t have these
anxiety attacks at least.” All I was doing was trying to explain away something
that could not be explained.

“So, anyway,” Mom was
saying, “I was thinking that maybe we should move.” I sat erect now. I was all
ears. “There are too many memories around here. And maybe if we were close to
you, in D.C., you could give me a hand from time to time?”

Good
Lord, no! How do I explain to my dear mother that I don’t even have time to
think about washing, bathing, or even jogging anymore, I am so tired? How do I
tell her that I work twelve hours a day and that I’m a wreck when I get home?

“Why don’t you wait until
Dad gets his pacemaker, Mom? Once he’s recovered from the operation and feels
better, we can re-examine the situation. Besides, dementia and Alzheimer patients
have a hard enough time dealing with familiar surroundings, let alone moving
them from one city to another.” I paused when I heard my mother sobbing
quietly. “Just stop that, Mom. Dad will be fine. You’ll see. You’re the strong
one now. And he needs you more than ever. Okay?”

“I hear you, Heather. I
know you’re busy. You’ve got a whole future ahead of you, and all I ask is your
support…”

“I know, Mom. And all I
am suggesting is that you guys wait until Dad gets his pacemaker. Apart from
that, you should talk to John and Eliot (my brothers). They might have a better
solution than the one I can offer you.”

“But they’re not doctors,
Heather. You are. You would know what to do.”

“No, Mom. Even if you
asked me, legally I cannot help Dad. It’s against the law to treat a member of
the family. Too many things can go wrong when a doctor is emotionally involved
with a patient. Besides, I could not stand you hating me for the rest of your
life if anything happened to Dad while I was treating him.”

“So, in the meantime, all
I do is wait, is that right?” Mom sounded frustrated.

“That’s not what I said.
Ask John and Eliot to lend a hand from time to time. They live next door, for
Pete’s sake. And after Dad’s operation, we’ll see how he is.”

“Okay, okay. I
understand. I’ll phone you to let you know when they’ve scheduled him for the
pacemaker.”

“That’s good. I’ll also
call you in the meantime, if I think of something else we could do to help Dad,
alright?”

“Right, dear. Have a good
night now. Kiss-kiss,” she said, before we hung up.

Tiffany looked at me when
I turned to her. “Parents are the worst!” she said with a tentative smile. I trusted
her to tell me exactly how I felt.

Chapter
11

It was a relief when, the
next day, Dr. Kerry told us that for the next few days we were going to follow
in the shadow of Dr. Slosberg. Apparently, he was the genius among the
neuro-surgeons working along the eastern seaboard. He had published a number of
articles regarding intracranial cancerous legions; various neurological
diseases affecting the brain and a couple of monographs describing some of the
difficult procedures he had undertaken. In short, the guy was a celebrity among
neuro-surgeons. All of what he had written, I had read while at university. In
his forties, the man inspired respect somehow. He was not taller or better
looking than any other man I had seen, but there was something about him that
commanded your attention. And I wasn’t alone in feeling that way. Most of the
interns seemed to be of the same opinion. Of course, we all had read his articles,
we also had heard about his exploits in the operating theater and there were
numerous examples of his successes described in most of our students’ textbooks.

So, that morning, Tiffany
and I were looking forward to meeting the man. To listen to him describe his
patients ailments and, strangely enough, I, for one, was even waiting for his
questions with bated breath. Silently, I compared him to Jeff. To me, Slosberg
was the surgeon par excellence. From what I had heard, he was attentive,
respectful of his patients’ emotions, and certainly compassionate toward the
families of those afflicted by irreversible diseases. Jeff, on the other hand,
was all precision. He was the perfect surgeon. His technique, his dexterity,
and his professionalism were irreproachable. However, his ego seemed to drop a
large blotch of ink on a perfectly clean pad. He showed his skills to
every one
who cared to look. As for his manners toward his
patients and their families, rumor had it that he visited them just enough to
let them know what was going on, but stopped short of showing any compassion or
any interest beyond his medical ministrations.

Dr. Kerry was always on
about “detachment”–don’t get involved sort of thing–but I could not see myself
being cold or “detached” toward a mother who’s just lost her son or daughter to
a disease. I would be right there holding the box of Kleenex for her, while
Jeff would hold the door open, waiting for her to leave. His egotism, I felt,
was jousting against callousness for first place in the ranks of questionable
behaviors on the part of a medical practitioner.

While I was churning all
sorts of dark thoughts about Jeff’s demeanor, Dr. Slosberg came in our lounge
room on the fifth floor. Dr. Kerry looked slightly surprised. She probably expected
for us to go down to the dungeon to meet the great man.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Slosberg,
you didn’t have to come all the way up here. Are we late?” She looked down at
her watch.

“No-no, Kerry. You’re not
late; I am early,” Slosberg answered, a broad smile on his lips. “I thought of
coming up since our first patient is on the fourth floor.” He paused and pulled
up a chair near our tables. “I wanted to describe what happened to the lady,
before we pay her a visit.” Everyone nodded. “You see, there was nothing wrong
as far as Mrs. Termini was concerned. She felt a bit light-headed from time to
time and, as any respectable Italian woman would, she would put it down to the
diet she was trying to follow. In short, she felt she wasn’t eating enough.
However, that excuse didn’t stand any ground when she collapsed in front of her
grocer. The man called the ambulance immediately, and she was soon assigned to
me. When she woke up, she had lost all memory of the incident. She couldn’t
remember her name, which year this is, or anything about the family members
that were surrounding her bed by then.” He stopped and turned to Dr. Kerry. “Do
you mind getting me a glass of water?”

“No-no, of course not.
Would you like a coffee instead?” she replied, already up and going to the
counter.

As soon as Slosberg drank
a large gulp of water, he continued recounting Mrs. Termini’s tale of woes.
“You see, we learn about dementia, about Alzheimer’s, and all of the many
diseases affecting our brains, but we seldom pay much attention to the causes
associated with such diseases. Although Mrs. Termini didn’t suffer from
Alzheimer, dementia, or even from temporary amnesia, I was keen to find out why
she suddenly lost her memory. Two days after her admission, she seemed to
remember everything that happened in the last 48 hours, but nothing of the
events that happened before that.